Piment

Not saying she can't participate in US politics, but I don't even think Pokimane can vote for Kamala because she's Canadian.

Veteran status as a protected class in and outside the US is on my mind because of the general outrage at the Twitch streamer Frogan for saying "U.S. military, boo-fucking-hoo, I hope you get PTSD". You may have heard of Frogan from being banned by Twitch for a month for participating in a hummus tier list.

https://hexbear.net/post/3733513

Something however that was less talked about was the push from liberal/right wing people attempting to get her de-platformed for discrimination against veterans which are under US law considered a protected class against illegal discrimination along with race, religion, country of origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, disability, et cetera. Even in Twitch's guidelines this is explicitly stated.

Twitch does not permit behavior that is motivated by hatred, prejudice or intolerance, including behavior that promotes or encourages discrimination, denigration, harassment, or violence based on the following protected characteristics: race, ethnicity, color, caste, national origin, immigration status, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, serious medical condition, and veteran status.

From my perspective one of these things is not quite like the others. This seems like a very US brained thing to include in your terms of service especially in an international company where there is an international community of streamers who may be veterans of many different armies. Let's say for example someone who served in the Taliban started Twitch streaming and was talking about their experience gunning down Yankees. I would strongly assume the same people who wanted Frogan de-platformed, would also want this hypothetical person de-platformed, but this person would be by definition a veteran and thus included as a protected person and could not be taken down for talking about their war experiences if they were consistent with what they claim/pretend to be their values. This thought experiment is basically just to highlight that it is incredibly unlikely that this "protected characteristic" would be actually treated consistently by those invoking it.

I think there is almost nothing to do about this on US run platforms like Twitch as a streamer who cares about not being banned. You should probably just never mention veterans because at any point if you say something even somewhat controversial you could be banned for discrimination/hate against veterans. In the eyes of the Twitch terms of service saying you wish PTSD to US veterans, even if those veterans are war criminals, is equivalent to saying you wish HIV to US gay people. I think this will be weaponized more and more especially since people will see that Frogan got banned for a month for an unspecified reason and will try to use this same strategy to attack people who criticize IDF/US soldiers and get people banned for talking about war crimes and other atrocities, and this is now going to start being considered a legitimate vector to de-platform people on spaces like Twitch.

Do you want to know something funny? The term Sabra comes from the name of the prickly pear cactus plant in Hebrew and the settlers assumed the cactus was a native plant to the territory. So they thought a plant represented them that they assumed was native to the land, but actually was not at all native to the land.

Since the early days of Jewish immigration to then-Mandate Palestine, Israelis have called the ideal Israeli, who is born in the country, a sabra: tough on the outside like the thorny fruit, soft on the inside like its sweet flesh, and native to the soil like the plant. (Although like many Israelis, sabra is actually an immigrant, having arrived from the Americas via Spain several centuries ago.)

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-does-sabra-mean

Well hopefully even if he doesn't do anything, people get together support them while they are banned, it's really just the Palestine version of the red scare, they are only being disciplined for being pro Palestinian, I don't think the higher ups at twitch are dumb enough to think they are actually antisemitic or whatever they are being accused of.

He could at least cover all of Frogan + co's Twitch salaries for the month they are banned similar to a strike fund. (edit) It is his podcast cohost from leftovers who is running this smear campaign so he does have some responsibility here especially since he made money from leftovers working with Ethan.