MIBR fer banned on Twitch amid racism, cheating controversies

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive pro player Fernando “fer” Alvarenga has been banned on Twitch, according to the Twitter account StreamerBans.

The ban follows what has been a month of bad press for both fer and his team, MIBR, after a series of incidents that included fer’s use of a Brazilian racial slur on his Twitch stream, death threats made against another professional CSGO player, and accusations of bullying another CSGO team into replaying a round.

Why was fer banned from Twitch?

It is currently unclear what exactly fer has been banned from Twitch for, but the ban most likely stems from an incident in which fer made racially insensitive comments about “hard hair” in response to a Twitch chat message. In Brazil, references to “hard hair” are essentially a racial slur directed to those of African American descent.  Twitch’s terms of service contains rules preventing things such as hate speech, as well as “violence and threats.”

Twitch considers violations of its TOS, especially the two aforementioned clauses, as “zero-tolerance violations.” This means that an account can be suspended indefinitely for a first offense. Since Twitch bans normally come as a result of violations of its terms of service, fer’s use of the localized slang is most likely the reason for the ban.

While MIBR promptly apologized on fer’s behalf, it seems as though Twitch has decided that the comment warranted a ban after review.

fer is a member of Made in Brazil, a professional CSGO team that has appeared in headlines recently for several incidents both directly and indirectly involving the veteran player. fer has come across as an instigator in several of these instances, including accusations of cheating against fellow CSGO pro player Nathan “leaf” Orf. A match between MIBR and leaf’s Chaos Esports Club resulted in 16-year-old leaf receiving death threats from MIBR fans after both prominent Brazilian streamer Alexandre “gAuLeS” Borba and MIBR players accused leaf of hacking in the CS Summit 6 event.

It is unclear for how long fer will be suspended from the streaming platform, but the ban looks like it’s just the latest chapter in MIBR’s rough month.