Navy Esports Team Resuming Twitch Streaming

After the initial fiasco that saw trolling put a pause to the Twitch streams of the Navy Esports Team, they will be resuming their streams on Twitch.

Goats & Glory will resume streaming on the Navy’s Twitch channel Friday night. This comes after claims surfaced that the esports team was violating free speech by banning chatters who raised questions about war crimes.

Rear Adm. Dennis Velez, the head of Navy Recruiting Command, decided to pause the streaming back on July 23rd as Velez said that users were “spamming” the Navy’s channel.

“There were a few folks who are going [into the channel] and just bringing up issues … not allowing conversations to take place,” Velez said, according to Military.com. “These are young sailors on the channel, and we wanted to make sure that they were comfortable.”

The fallout led to claims that of possible First Amendment violations.

“We follow the Twitch rules for moderation,” Velez said. “You have to have some policies in place … on moderated discussions [because] it’s pretty easy for anyone to hijack the conversation and not allow people to ask questions.”

While new in the world of esports teams and esports players, the Navy has had to clarify what their intentions truly were, and they claim it isn’t to recruit people, but for the sailors streaming to inform young people about life in the Navy and the military lifestyle.

If you were to watch one of our streaming sessions, you would see a sailor wearing a Navy esports jersey with the Navy logo on the front and the American flag on the back,” Velez said. “… As they’re playing a game, they’re having discussions with fans and the folks that are watching. They are there to answer questions about the Navy.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, unsuccessfully tried to impose a ban on the military using services and platforms such as Twitch as a recruiting tool, but she was right on the money that that kind of activity needs to be kept away from platforms.

“These are not education outreach programs for the military,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

“At the end of the day, the most important thing is allowing young sailors to talk about the things they have done,” Velez said. “It’s a powerful way to communicate to people that may not know anything about the Navy.”