2mo ago

Hasan Piker detained at the border and questioned for hours over politics

www.usermag.co

Twitch streamer Hasan Piker detained at the border and questioned for hours over politics

Hasan Piker, the biggest progressive political streamer in America, was detained by Customs and Border Protection for hours of questioning upon returning to the U.S. from a trip to France this weekend. Piker posted about the incident on X and later talked about it on stream.

He was detained in Chiago and questioned for two hours about protected journalistic activities like who he’s interviewed and his political beliefs. He was asked whether or not he’d interviewed Hamas, Houthis, or Hezbollah members. He was questioned about his opinions on Trump and Israel and asked about his history of bans on Twitch. His phone and laptop were not confiscated.

Politics @beehaw.org

alyaza [they/she] @beehaw.org

2mo ago

Twitch streamer Hasan Piker detained at the border and questioned for hours over politics

www.usermag.co /p/hasan-piker-detained-at-the-border-and-questioned-for-hours-over-politics-trump-immigration

232 comments

Is anyone surprised? This isn't a jab at Hasan, it's just a reminder that fascists will crack down on opponents. The likes of Hasan will be deliberately targeted until they've been silenced one way or another, and then they'll come for you.
- I'm actually surprised it didn't happen sooner, but it's still newsworthy.
- Is "are you surprised?" the measure we use now to determine if something is worth reporting on?
- Trump has been openly talking about persecuting his political opponents, so this is just an extension of that.
- This is basically a warning to him to get out of dodge.
  Probably a warning to others like him, too.

Remember folks, it starts with the leftists, then it doesn't stop until we lose for good. Every 80 years.
- It didn't start with leftists. It started with immigrants, but we didn't do anything, because both parties are united in bigotry and vile hatred against immigrants.
  
  no, it started with leftists. It just started a lot longer ago than you think.
  
  we didn’t do anything,
  Who is "we"? Please don't include me in your nationalist cult.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_religion
  The reality is that leftists have constantly been fighting for refugees, while libs/dems have been doing worse than nothing by supporting fascism.
- Idk guys, I feel like I'm not going to just let them win. I think we can dish out more than they can.
- But here's the thing most leftists are pseudo-leftists (AKA controlled opposition)
  So deal with that first.

Crazy that in his stream with FD a few weeks ago he was adamant that he'd be one of the last people impacted by the immigration/border control nonsense.
I think it just goes to show how, even otherwise well informed people, can underestimate how much fascism will impact them personally. It can be easy to distance yourself until it is in your face, placing you in cuffs, or forcible removing you from your home. I hope he learns a lesson from this experience.

No fan of Hasan, but this shouldn't be happening to anyone.
- Who asked?
- He literally supports terrorism on stream - no wonder he got in trouble
  
  Hasan has never supported terrorism on stream. Go back to drooling at the rat shaker
  
  That is nonsense, cite your sources
  Here are my sources, Sam Seder dismantling Ethan Klein while Hasan gives context to all the lazy slander y'all are leveling at him.
  https://youtu.be/nrwtpG-jidU
  
  Lmao at the number of downvotes, another W for lemmy.
  If you're actually curious about why someone might see a group like the Houthis differently than the US state department does, here's an excellent explanation by a well-known and respected Israeli political scientist on the matter. You're free to disagree with him, but there's good reason to be skeptical of the terror designation and more reason still why recognizing their support against a genocide certainly shouldn't be viewed as an endorsement of their ideological perspective.
  
  Found the genocide supporting zionazi
  
  He literally supports terrorism on stream
  No, whenever I see him talk about Gaza he always speaks against Israel; I don't know where you're getting that he supports them.
  
  Seeing the downvotes on this moron makes me think I’m in the right community. Thanks lemmings. Rodents strong together. 🐁
  
  He literally supports terrorism on stream - no wonder he got in trouble
  Defamatory accusations like this literally need a video source.
  Hitchen's razor: “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.”
  - -
  ✍︎ arscyni.cc: modernity ∝ nature.
  
  Enjoy arguing with man children level arguments.
  Hassan is as much of a leftist as Srump or The Dipshit are right wing.

Pathetic, and for the record Hasan would interview Hamas, because interviewing someone is not an endorsement of someone if you aren't a piece of shit fraud like the members of the Trump administration who treat interviews as theater to spread propaganda with no evidence are.
Assuming someone interviewing someone you consider a threat is thus by association a threat of the same kind is a shockingly dangerous precendent to set and basically spells out the extinction of a free press in no uncertain terms.
- That may be true but he also does explicitly support hamas.
  
  He explicitly supports Palestinian resistance
  
  What’s wrong with supporting Hamas?
  Palestinians have a legal right to armed struggle
  Palestinian right of armed resistance
  UN top court says Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal
  Then again if this how many US liberals feel, I am glad I left the US.
  
  Show us a video clip or you're a pathetic liar

I'm glad he was released, this shouldn't have happened. Meanwhile, a random Iraqi who was legally, iirc, here was sent to Rwanda. We know nothing else about that afaik.

- Yeah, it's disgusting that people's first reaction to someone being unjustly detained is that.

They can't really tell the difference between Hasan Piker, Mahmoud Khalil, and Yahya Sinwar. They literally don't know there is a difference, and don't particularly care to investigate. It's all just "terrorist," just some of them live in the US and are allowed on the internet. For some reason. Temporarily.

Fox version, if they even cover it:
"A known terrorist supporter was questioned about his pro-hamas stances and his hatred of America, hatred of our great president especially, and the left naturally are losing their minds over this! Of course they would because they also hate America and hate freedom. They want hamas to run America into the ground and they want transgender Communism forced down your childrens throats! Thank God for the great job border protection and customs does, he's just lucky he got to leave outside of a casket! More than he deserves!"
MAGA: mhmm mmhmm, sound right. Good thing border patrol and customs protects us! We need to give ICE more money! There's nothing wrong at all with this picture!

Wow this is bad. Even if you deem questioning necessary, it being done by border protection is a bad sign. There are other mechanisms in place for that.
The US is spiraling fast.
- Question
  When do who exactly deem that "questioning" journalists is a good idea? Who? Can anyone deem anyone else for "questioning"?
  What are the wrong answers? What is the questions about? What do they question about and why?
  
  If there were legitimate questions about someone's affiliation with terrorist organisations it does make sense to question them regardless of if they are a journalist or not.
  Edit: to clarify I don't agree with what happened in this case and I would expect a warrant
  
  Hasan is on tape saying his goal is to radicalise his audience. Calling him a journalist mightve sound plausible four years ago.

I'm starting to feel like a lot of the takes against Hasan are in bad faith. I watched a little recap and I felt it was both clear and obvious that YOU (normal person) shouldn't do what he did.
But being a notable person of interest who was already (questionably?) illegally caught up in a bad system, there's reason to believe things wouldn't take a turn for the better just because he asked to lawyer up. So he took a calculated risk and engaged with the situation enough to gather a first hand experience he could report on. Concrete evidence, there's value in that. It was his decision to make.
To reiterate, obvious YOU don't do that. Stay silent, lawyer up.
- Yeah you don't have to watch Hasan for too long to realize that most objections against him are empty / bad faith. If he's guilty of anything at all it's getting distracted by / yelling at his chat too much. But I chalk that up to general Twitch culture. The reality is that he's politically activating and engaging tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of people who wouldn't be otherwise, or would have been watching slop / right wing pipeline content instead. I wish there were more people like him in streaming, but obviously it's a difficult niche to exist in.
- They are in bad faith. If you watch a full argument from Hasan, it’s really difficult to not agree with him. The American centric view of the world is distorting everything. Step back, watch events from a different prospective, many things will be clearer.

The questioning (though harmless) is often a stepping stone to more drastic measures. In the place where I live (not the US), my local religious police does questioning to make sure that activists are not posting their status online. This sort of measure helps them evade accountability and keeps the general public in ignorance.
- The questioning (though harmless)
  There's nothing "harmless" about kidnapping people and coercing them into an interrogation.
  This sort of measure helps them evade accountability and keeps the general public in ignorance.
  Yep, that's some of the harm.
  
  That is true. Interrogations do harm communities to a larger extent than I initially thought. I recall how my neighborhood had to stop everything (such as art, videos, embroidery, food) just so they could avoid police kidnappings. We had three post-doctoral candidates in our district arrested for insulting the sultan (and his religion) and although they were smart enough to hire defense counsel, their lawyers told us that their clients are "jailed without trial".
- This is what happens when you gut education, the "regular people" observing this no longer have the historical context of what this shit actually means in the scheme of things during an ongoing fascist takeover. "What's wrong with them just asking questions to make sure he's not a terrorist?"
  So they let it happen, and in many cases, even cheer it on.
- In the place where I live (not the US), my local religious police does questioning to make sure that activists are not posting their status online.
  Careful. Depending on which not-the-US country you're in, this could be flagged as anti-semitism.
  
  My guess is Iran, and OP should probably not confirm or deny for good reasons. Which other country have religious police, where it could flagged as anti-semitism though?

Never heard of this guy but must have hit a nerve if a whole Hasbara brigade is showing up here to trash talk him.
That being said, it’s an interesting turn of events that apparently units around immigration take the role of Gestapo. Makes a lot of sense given what types of people would even want to do such a job but it’s still not what I expected when they said fascism is coming back.
- Right wing groups have been targeting him for his support of Palestine and being critical of Israel.
- It should be a surprise to no one that government goons are totally on board with fascism. Did anyone think for a second that they would have objections? A person that chose to be in a position of authority is going to complain when an authoritarian leader gives them more power? Yeah right. It's all about the power trip for those thugs.
  
  The government is full of career public servants who are very serious about their work, and in nearly every case, have made a conscious decision to make less money in order to be able to use their knowledge and expertise to serve the public.
  So I think it's important to make a distinction about who you're referring to when you say "government goons"

Hopefully the border agents learned something.
- Brain rot and no accountability 🤷
- Border agents aren't capable of learning anything but new laws to punish brown people with. Smart people aren't good strongmen for fascism.

progressive
Pretty sure dude is a leftist. Capitalist media has never encountered this before.
- Borderline tankie. Remember him being best buds with putin before russia attacked Ukraine? Dude probably still blames NATO for that.
  
  I can't find any evidence for this? I only found a source of him saying Putin wouldn't invade Ukraine.
  Hasan Piker: I said Russia will never invade Ukraine, because Putin is a bad person, but he's not a mad person.
  
  This is the reason I am extremely cautious with anyone of this ilk. There seems to be too many people who happen to be leftist. Socialist. Whatever. And then out of nowhere.. whitewashing of putin/russia/soviets. .. because america / nato / West bad.
  Which I won't abide for. Ever

I have a like/dislike perspective on Hasan Piker.
Hes tankie-lite. Critical support for him in this case though, fuck ICE.
Its probably an indicator that I really need to touch grass that I'm primarily curious what Ethan Klein and Lonerbox think of this.
- Man, I liked some of Klein's videos from way back ( idubbbz as well) but when YouTubers shift from whatever content they were making to making content about the platform or others on it I usually check out real quick.
  I also can't do 3 hour podcasts where people talk over each other and yell either so maybe I'm just not the target demo anymore.
  
  Its further an indication that I need to touch grass that when I read your name I think of Vaush's editor.

It's too bad they didn't let him stream it. That would've been peak content.

They are going after white-passing US citizens now?
- If they're known left-wingers, yes.
- Hasan is not a very pale-skin name. If his name was Bob, it might be different.
  
  this isn't about his skin or name. they knew who he was, and they already had questions for him about his views and even interviews he's done. this is 100% trying to suppress 1A

These people get to ask Hasan head-empty questions for hours and get paid. To think his entire fanbase has been doing it for free this entire time

I find it crazy to hear this coming from the US. It was all over the news when Serbia detained a Croatian singer trying to cross the border or trying to deport people with Croatian citizenship, crazy to see the same thing happening in the US.
- Completely normal for USA. There are plenty of people who have been hiding from imperial violence. Snowden, Assange, et al. Always has been.
  https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/abdulrahman-al-awlaki-us-drone-strike-10-years

who is this fool, i heard of him having drama withouter influencers.

Hasan's a moron, but detaining him for his opinions is definitely unwarranted and stinks of the same bullshit reasons that this administration has been using to play hide and seek and deport anyone they don't like.
- I don't know the guy. Why is he a moron?
  
  He preaches hard left politics. Mostly people want to call him a moron for hot takes, but the majority of what he says is fine.
  
  He's a "moron" for standing up to imperialism. Most of Lemmy just vote, fantasize about leopards, and bootlick.
  
  He isn't. There are many right wing groups purposely spreading hate to discredit him as he is one of the only left wing political streamer criticizing Israel, Russia, Democrats, etc...
  
  People who haven't sat down to watch his stream only know him through an undeserved reputation so they feel like they have to qualify any supportive statements they make to avoid being attacked.
  
  Leftist. Generally if you don't agree with someone, a dumb person will say that person is dumb. Take from that what you will

Ive been stopped and questioned by border patrol for hours at least 3 times over the last 15 years. Apparently I'm an asshole and this is how they "get their revenge" on you. This guy was only stopped once..... amateur.

It would suck if Hasan is getting harassed by the government. I bet if kamala won he wouldn't have, though.
- Brown people being harmed, neoliberals: "How can I make this about who i voted for?"
  
  How can you talk about Hasan at a time like this. There is a GENOCIDE happening. Disgraceful.
- Yeah, but what has Kamala done to prevent them from harrasing him today? It's the democrats' fault he got detained!!1one
  
  She did nothing. Shame kamala.

Answering as he did was irresponsible.
"I invoke my legal right to silence under the 5th amendment and will not answer any questions without legal council"
- This is Trump speak.
  Like, Trump literally (in the literal sense of literally) made this point.
  
  Wut. If you are being questioned by any form of law enforcement it is because they want you to tell them something that will put you or someone else in prison. They are trained to get you to say incriminating things. It is your constitutional right to not talk to them. Do not fucking talk to cops. Shut the fuck up.
  
  Pigs aren't an audience and aren't there to be convinced. They are there to gather intel. There are Jan 6ers working for ICE. Don't do their jobs for them.
- Fash
  
  Says the prick who appears to support Trump's anti-trans scapegoating.
  
  what kinda glowie nonsense is "dont talk to cops" now fascism? dont talk to cops, get a lawyer.

Should he be detained like that, no.
He's an absolute scumbag though

Which part of "America"? From the US, neither his face or name seem familiar and I'm trying to gauge my level of out-of-touchiness in light of this "biggest" streamer.
- He is the 21st most popular Twitch streamer and the most popular left wing Twitch streamer. His Uncle is Cenk who is co founder of The Young Turks. He is very very well known for actual Left wing politics.
- If you have other progressive political streamers in your part of America, I'd love to give them a listen if you don't mind sharing. Love discovering new voices.
  
  The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder
- Straight from his Wikipedia page:
  Piker's stream covering the results of the 2020 United States presidential election peaked at 230,000 concurrent viewers and was the sixth most-watched source of election coverage across YouTube and Twitch, comprising 4.9% of the market share.
  I'd say that's a pretty significant portion of all online coverage for that election. He's not famous famous but he's definitely a big online political figure.
- "hey guys, can we talk about my ignorance instead of this subject at hand?"
  
  There are plenty of other comments discussing the subject in this post, by all means, feel free to engage with them.

Rip bozo

Lol good.
- How exactly is this good?

No surprise. He's literally giving terrorists a platform lmao.
- Which ones? According to whose definition?
  
  He has played terrorist propaganda that he relabeled as a music video. He has condoned and emphatically endorsed the actions of Houthis and Hamas. He parrots the claims of those groups and denies any validity to any contradiction of their claims.
  They are considered terrorist groups by everybody. They kill civilians, commit sexual violence against innocent people, kill homosexuals/LGBTQ+,and commit acts of violence in order to further their political agenda.
  Don't one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter them, they don't want a free and democratic state. They want a religious theocracy that will kill anybody who isn't on-board with them.
  And yes, I consider Israel a terrorist state.
- Fash
- Congratulations, you are an idiot. Got back to school and learn what terrorist and resistance mean. Then op on wikipedia and check the loooooooooong list of CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY and WAR CRIMES that Israel committed, including the EXPLICIT CALL TO KILL ALL PALESTINIANS, kids and women included.
  I don’t like to repeat myself but you are a fucking idiot at best. A monster at worst.

232 comments