Montana Black, a German Twitch streamer with over 4 million followers, received backlash on Tuesday after promoting an NFT giveaway featuring a “cyber kong” wearing a swastika armband. The tweet was later removed from his Twitter page, but not before it sparked widespread outrage online.
Twitter user SupremeSchaf captured an image of Black’s now-deleted Tweet in the Tweet below. A Nazi swastika, Hitler’s Nazi Party’s symbol in the 1930s and 1940s, is clearly depicted in the background of the giveaway image.
The video sparked outrage online, particularly on the Reddit forum r/LiveStreamFails, with many people condemning the uncritical use of the fascist symbol, which is directly linked in meaning to the Holocaust and other atrocities committed by Nazi Germany in the twentieth century.
Section 86a of Germany’s criminal code prohibits the depiction of Nazi symbols.
Only a few exceptions to this rule exist, such as for artistic or educational purposes. German citizens who are found in violation of the penal code when it comes to Nazi symbols face fines and possible prison time. It is unclear whether an NFT depicting a gorilla with a Swastika would violate the rules without a ruling from a German court, but there is a chance that Black could face legal consequences for his promotion of an NFT depicting a swastika.
It’s also possible that he’ll be punished by Twitch, which prohibits hateful behavior, such as bigoted symbols and slurs, on or off their platform. They expressly prohibit the use of Nazi imagery, such as “posting a swastika or SS bolts in chat.”