After apologizing for a rant where he said Palestinians belong to an ‘inferior culture,’ the popular streamer will no longer hold a leadership position at the streamer-owned publisher he helped create.

Streamer-affiliated publisher Mad Mushroom has announced that cofounder “Asmongold” (real name: “Zack,” last name withheld) will be stepping away from the company following an anti-Muslim rant this week that led to him being temporarily banned on streaming platform Twitch.

The company shared the news in a statement posted on X (formerly Twitter). “As an indie game publisher, we exist to empower developers from all cultures and backgrounds to share their stories and passions through their art,” it wrote.

“The viewpoints shared by Asmongold are antithetical to our mission. Zack will be stepping away from his leadership role in Mad Mushroom to work on himself and hold himself accountable.”

The comments in question concerned the fate of Palestinian people in Gaza who are dying by the thousands as Israel expands its invasion in response to the October 7 attack by Hamas in 2023. Some human rights organizations have described the invasion as a genocide. In response to a viewer question about the invasion, Asmongold stated that he “did not care” if Gazans were being “genocided,” claiming that Islamic Sharia Law itself is a foundation for genocide.

“If you want to consider a genocide as a systematic killing of a group of people they have genocide built into Sharia law right now, so no I’m not going to cry a fucking river when people who have genocide that’s baked into their laws are getting genocided,” he said, going on to call Gazans “terrible people.”

His comments refer to an interpretation of Islamic Sharia law wielded by right-wing groups that push hatred of Muslims. According to groups like the Council for Foreign Relations, Sharia law is a religious and legal framework used by some nations and communities to guide their laws, but its stricter interpretations are not universally representative of the faith.

Asmongold apologized for his rant in a video on YouTube. “I was making a criticism of religious extremism and I almost made an effort not to draw a distinction between the two things…whenever I categorize everybody in the area as this like group then I’m the asshole and I was the asshole.”

Mad Mushroom’s post quoted a statement made by streaming organization OTK, whose various cofounders and streaming personalities make up Mad Mushroom’s founding group. OTK said that it “denounces all forms of discrimination and violence, and that sort of behavior cannot be tolerated.”

It said that Asmongold will also be “stepping away” from OTK’s other affiliate companies Starforge and Mythic Talent. A spokesperson for Mad Mushroom declined to answer if the streamer was divesting his ownership stake in these companies, only repeating that he would be “stepping away” from leadership.

Asmongold’s behavior highlights risks of streaming-based businesses
Asmongold’s tirade is the latest in a string of hateful videos posted by the popular content creator. In February, he platformed the ongoing hate campaign targeting narrative consultancy studio Sweet Baby Inc in an interview with Karbrutus, the creator of the Steam Group named “Sweet Baby Inc. Detected.”

He would spend the following months railing against “diversity, equity, and inclusion” efforts, lashing out at reporting on the alleged culture of sexism at Black Myth: Wukong developer Game Science and casting diversity and inclusion initiatives as being cover for “predatory” monetization mechanics. He would regularly promote his work at Mad Mushroom and games he was publishing alongside these videos (he properly disclosed his ownership of the company when doing so).

The sharp contrast between these two types of videos spotlights the risks of “authenticity” that Mad Mushroom pitched to developers, as his authentically-held views about topics like inclusion or Israel’s invasion of Gaza and Lebanon lived side-by-side with promoting games at the company.

Asmongold’s apology video appears to indicate a desire to reshape that authenticity and turn over a new leaf. “For the last two years I think I’ve been slowly devolving into the most mean-spirited…rude, nasty, callous, psychopathic version of myself,” he said.

“Maybe this is too far, maybe I need a course correction,” he added later on. “I [hope] getting suspended is one of the best things that ever happened to me. I don’t know whether that’s going to be true but I’m going to try and do things differently and make sure to live up to that reality.”

Developers suspicious of the streamer’s overtures toward reform likely won’t be comforted by follow-up comments to the video he posted on Reddit. “If you think that means my first stream back is going to be playing Dustborn and promoting Sweet Baby, I think you’ll be very disappointed,” he wrote, seemingly taking a swipe at Red Thread Games’ latest title (which he slammed on his channel) and Sweet Baby Inc.

“I’m not changing anything other than trying to be more positive and less mean-spirited.”

Source: Game Developer

On May 8, Representative Lauren Boebert, a Colorado Republican, posted a clip posted on X, formerly Twitter, of Representative Chip Roy, a Texas Republican, giving a speech on the House floor, voicing fears of Muslims gaining membership in the U.K. government.

“You’ve got a massive Muslim takeover on the United Kingdom going on right before our eyes,” Roy said without giving evidence to back up his claims. “I’ve got some pretty strong concerns about Sharia law and whether that will be forced upon the American people.” Sharia law is the legal system followed by Muslims.

“I’ve got pretty strong concerns about people who want to see Israel’s destruction. Who were happy about October 7^th. Who are elected in the United Kingdom. Some might say that we’ve seen that here in the United States,” Roy said.
Roy then questioned if immigrants in the U.S. are being taught about Western civilization.

“Are we teaching people about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the rule of law … are we teaching them God exists?” Roy asked. “Or are we teaching an entire generation or two or three to run around complaining about what’s wrong and why the entire world is against them because of their skin color, their sex, their supposed gender identity—whatever that hell category we create to make people have an excuse for not just stepping up and achieving the American dream?”

Alongside the video, Boebert claimed, also without any evidence, that “the United Kingdom has radical Islamists taking political office all over the country. We’re looking at it from here in America horrified, not realizing that it will be us next.”

Roy and Boebert’s comments come after Liberal Democrats gained 104 council seats while Conservatives lost 474 seats in the U.K.’s recent election. Liberal Democrats now have 522 council seats while Conservatives have 515. The Labour Party gained 186 seats, giving them a total of 1,158.

It is unclear how many of the newly elected U.K. officials are Muslim, but, according to England and Wales census data from 2021, 6.5 percent of the population identified as Muslim (3.9 million people). Pew Research Center estimated that Muslims made up about 1.1 percent of the U.S. population in 2017 (3.45 million).

The Muslim Council of Britain, a Muslim advocacy group in the U.K., told Newsweek via email on May 9: “We have a proud multifaith and multicultural country where we have people of all faiths and none in public service. We have a British Hindu Prime Minister and yes, British Muslims leading our cities and representing ordinary Britons. They don’t come close to reflecting the demographic make-up of minorities, and yet their numbers are big enough to trigger bigots on both sides of the Atlantic.

“We are getting used to extremist American politicians’ scaremongering over this, just as we’ve had American commentators lying about supposed British no-go zones dominated by Muslims. We hope common sense prevails.”

Continue reading on: Newsweek