The U.S. Army eSports team was temporarily halted after controversy erupted around them banning certain users on the video game streaming platform Twitch. Who would have thought that a video game recruiting effort would run afoul of constitutional issues, but apparently they did.
Lawyers claimed that the Army could not block or ban users as it infringed on their 1st amendment rights. Although the courts have not made a ruling in this specific case, a previous ruling regarding President Trump's Twitter account seems to back the 1st amendment claim, at least in theory.
The Army's eSports team is a new recruiting initiative, aimed at making young people aware of military service by having uniformed soldiers play live-streamed video games. Conceptually, the idea is simple enough, the Army is going where young people are: video games. Handing out pamphlets outside a shopping mall urging teenagers to go to a recruiting station is a thing of the past. In practice, however, Army eSports is struggling to find its way.
Their first stream after the banning and blocking controversy was from Sgt. 1st Class Chris Jones who goes by the handle "Goryn" on Twitch. Just as before, the chat was filled with derogatory comments.
"I can join USArmy Esports if I cant do warcrimes right," user 14_chesnuts typed.
Another user called Mr.Tobi_ wrote, "MY FAVORITE WAR CRIME IS VAPORISING INNOCENT CHILDREN."
Bleachno9 wrote, "END US IMPERIALISM! GO AWOL."
While these types of comments could be charitably called trolling, others were a bit more specific.
Mr_games_and_toke criticized the Army eSports recruiting initiative saying, "It's trying to make the army seem cool and get them youngsters to join the military so they can be used for suits back home to gain profit."
"Isn't it nice that the Army wasted money on a 'eSports facility' and not defending the country from real threats like COVID? Come to think of it, the army should not get this funding. Defund the military, Medicare for ALL!" user NomDeNet wrote.
For well over an hour, Sgt. 1st Class Jones grinned and bore it, either unprepared or unauthorized to defend the Army from every single accusation of wrongdoing in American history during a video game livestream. To be fair, he's placed in a tough situation but he's also a representative of the U.S. Army in a job that involves interfacing with the public.
Suffice to say, it was a relief when the Q&A part of the stream ended and Jones spun up some World of Warcraft.