Accounts director and strategic partnership manager at Twitch, Hassan Bokhari, has been fired following serious sexual harassment allegations.
A Canadian Twitch streamer known as Vio exposed a Twitch staff member for exploiting his position and sexual harassing her in a very damning Twitlonger.
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Twitch confirmed that their accounts director and strategic partnership manager, Hassan Bokhari, has been fired from the company. Last month the former staff member’s Twitch account was permanently banned which lead to a lot of speculation in the community.
People later discovered that a Canadian Twitch partner known as Vio (VioTCZ on Twitter) had levied some very serious sexual harassment allegations against him on July 26th, 2020.
Twitch streamer Vio (real name and age unknown)shows stomach after workout (via Instagram)
The allegations made their rounds in Twitch HQ but were largely ignored by the higher-ups. It wasn’t until other, more popular, Twitch partners started speaking up about their experience with harassment on the platform that Twitch decided to act.
3 months after Vio exposed Hassan Bokhari for sexual harassment Twitch finally banned Hassan off the platform, and two weeks later they revealed that he had been fired.
I’m done being silent.
“My abuser is a well-known Twitch Staff member who happens to also handle partner’s accounts – including those of women. His name is Hassan Bokhari, and goes by ‘Hassan’ on Twitch,” Vio wrote in her Twitlonger.
Hassan was known to the community to being a bit of a “feminist” and, according to YouTube comedian It’sAGundam, a “defender of thots.”
Hassan would be the go to guy for female partnered Twitch when they wanted issues resolved or just wanted to call in favours. The Twitch partnership manager would often resolve account strikes and remove suspensions from his favourite female Twitch partners, but would be rather harsh on male streamers.
Canadian Twitch streamer Vio doing yoga in her studio (via Instagram)
However, according to Vio, he wouldn’t just do this to be nice; he had ulterior motives.
Hassan allegedly leveraged his position as a Twitch partner manager to get sexual favours from aspiring female Twitch streamers. He’d boast and brag about his work while trying to impress them. He’d also promise them fame and fortune. At least that was the case for Vio.
Bite the hand the felt you.
The Canadian Twitch streamer was a small YouTuber with very few followers until Hassan discovered her in a Destiny (Bungie’s Shoot n’ Loot game) Discord server. He, seemingly, became infatuated with her and promised her a Twitch partnership as well as many other perks.
Vio said she didn’t believe him because she didn’t meet the requirements, but Hassan view-botted her channel and forced her contract through.
After all that Hassan had done for her, he made advances on her and persisted even though she repeatedly said no. Eventually, she gave in and “dated” him for a short amount of time without feeling physical attraction.
Real picture of the fired Twitch partnership director Hassan Bokhari but unconfirmed if acutal Snap Chat message.
“The relationship was toxic from both sides,” she explained. After they broke up Hassan shared Vio nudes with another known Twitch streamer called Luminosity.
Vio claims she felt preyed on, manipulated, gas-lighted, violated, and sexually assaulted.
She concluded, “I understand that he’s done a lot for partners and Twitch, and that he’s especially done a lot for me, but I didn’t deserve this treatment.”
But he just loved her… right?
There’s no arguing that Hassan did a lot for Vio; if it wasn’t for him she’d still be a small-time YouTuber and wouldn’t have her dream job. She got an express ticket to success.
However, despite being an entertaining streamer with a relatively good taste in music, she learned that being a Twitch partner means nothing if you can’t maintain your viewership. Her channel was on a downwards trend at the time she wrote her “I’m done being silent” Twitlonger.
Perhaps she felt that all that she went through just simply wasn’t worth what she got in the end? But if Hassan really loved her, wouldn’t it mean that she exploited his feelings and used him to get to the top?
Just going to leave this here as a prime example of manipulation tactics. pic.twitter.com/uNEqGzazff
— kittyhouseknife (@kittyhouseknife) June 25, 2020
It would… but this was allegedly a tactic that Hassan Bokhari often used to coerce female wannabe Twitch partners into doing sexual favours.
S*x work or s*xually harassment?
Many Twitch streamers exploit their bodies for fame and fortune. While one could argue that the onus is also on her for admittedly willingly dating a guy she had no attraction to while knowing that it can be beneficial for, there’s absolutely no excuse for Hassan persisting with his harassment and assault after Vio repeatedly said no.
That is sexual assault, and it is clear and concise. But considering it took Twitch so long to take action against Hassan might mean that he wasn’t actually fired for harassing Vio.
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Vio names two abusers in her statement: Hassan and Luminosity. Luminosity is still on Twitch despite being exposed soliciting lewd photos from women. So, if Twitch were to ban/fire Hasssan for this type of misconduct, they’d need to be consistent and do the same to Luminosity. Twitch, though, isn’t really known for being consistent when enforcing their policies.
Was Bokhari fired for leaking sensitive information?
In the Twitlonger Vio reveals that Hassan Bokhari would often leak Twitch insider secrets and information.
“[Hassan] would often rant about partners and often share confidential information about them – including DMs between him and partners, emails between him and partners, whispers etc. He’d share these with me in private, but also in group Discord calls where my community, him and I would all hang out in. In private he’d share them mostly vocally, sometimes through screenshare (I’ve seen things from partner dashboards/revenue dashboards, work emails, work group chats/emails (especially in regards to bans), personal partner contracts including the ones of some of the biggest streamers,” she said.
This is enough to get any Twitch employee fired, even if they’ve never harassed or assaulted anyone. It could also potentially expose Twitch to a class action privacy lawsuit which would be very damaging for the company.
Vio streams 2-3 times a week on Twitch and now has over 46,000 followers. So, even though she was merely given the Twitch Partnership badge she has at least earned it now.