Twitch star HasanAbi says he was detained, questioned by border agents
69 comments
·May 13, 2025benmmurphy
They shouldn't be able to do this to a US citizen on landing based on his first amendment speech. The important thing here is landing because he really has missed his chance to commit a terror. I guess theoretically you could do something bad in the airport but it would seem to make more sense to do something bad on the airplane if you had the opportunity. However, I have seen a tweet where he is complaining about extra attention at Charles de Gaulle [https://x.com/hasanthehun/status/1921511816888242297] and that shouldn't be really surprising. A lot of airport security is ass covering and if someone who has expressed support for a terrorist organization goes on to commit a terror then you are going to wish you did the ass covering. This is not argument that the extra attention is rational based on the probabilities just the way the incentives are going to work.
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Terr_
> Tricia McLaughlin, Homeland Security assistant secretary, appeared to confirm that Piker was held for questioning but disputed any claims that political beliefs triggered his inspection.
Hmmm, normally a Homeland Security official would merit more default credibility than some Twitch streamer... But the year is 2025, and that exact official has been telling lies about victims they illegally kidnapped without trial and renditioned into a life-sentence in an El Salvador concentration camp.
[0] https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-ad...
hn_acker
If you are detained by any member of US law enforcement, including CBP, Don't Talk to the Police [1] no matter how innocent you are.
honeybadger1
it seems a little over blown to me. he has an audience that is full of some pretty left wing folks, and the bigger that audience gets and who they are made of will certainly effect him. he's wealthy because of his hardcore beliefs and the base he's amased and he said he is privileged..well, what comes with that is scrutiny.
i personally don't subscribe to most of his beliefs but I don't think he should be targeted by big government. i'm not so sure it's all that personal as he's using his microphone to say, drumming up his base...
wetpaws
[dead]
M4v3R
[flagged]
danpalmer
I don't know Hasan, but I've heard statements like "so and so endorses Hamas" used to summarise someone voicing concerns for civilian deaths in Gaza.
I'm not saying your comments are in bad faith, I don't know (and encourage you to provide links to back up your statements), but these comments are reminiscent of frequently made bad faith comments, so the only way to differentiate is by providing that evidence with your statements.
M4v3R
I also believe you don’t speak in bad faith but it doesn’t look good when you raise suspicion when openly admitting you don’t have knowledge about the topic. Yes, Hasan is raising concerns about Gaza. But he goes further than that and that’s the crux of the issue.
dttze
People openly support Israel committing a genocide. Who cares if others support Hamas.
forgotoldacc
People have really shot themselves with "boy who cried wolf" situations these past few years. Anyone who remotely disagrees with anything or has any concerns is instantly labeled as supporting (bad extremist thing). And there have been two major consequences of this: innocent people being labeled as extremists, and actual extremists being given a free pass because people just stopped caring about the endless finger pointing long ago.
I also don't know the guy beyond seeing his name a few times online. Don't know a single thing he said. But I've also reached a point where I don't care because I've seen so many people simply ask "what's the point of this?" and end up being called terrorist sympathizers.
Maybe he's bad. Maybe he's good. But there are so many efforts out there to build up absolute databases of random quotes people say to frame them as evil that I don't even want to contribute to either side by taking a stance. Because it's only a matter of time until some new thing becomes The Big Evil and some dumb thing I've said gets me labeled a terrorist.
elefanten
[flagged]
johnduhart
Linking to a collection of context-less clips from a streamer with an active sexual harassment suit[1], whose community is engaging on a harassment campaign against the subject in question[2] isn't the unbiased source you think it is.
1: https://www.polygon.com/news/527186/destiny-steven-bonnell-s... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destiny_(streamer)#Post-Twitch...
wesselbindt
Having seen Destiny's loose grasp on facts during the Lex Friedman hosted debate with Benny Morris, Norman Finkelstein, and Mouin Rabbani, I'm gonna go ahead and consider a fan-sourced wiki bearing his name as unreliable.
danpalmer
Thanks for the link, but as you said the value is about 3 seconds. Who’s this source? What are their biases? Are the summaries accurate?
What id prefer is a link to a video or post or something where he makes one of these comments so that I can understand what he’s saying myself, or a link to someone I trust making a statement on it. I will go and watch some of the linked clips, but you can understand that this is a much higher time investment and not something I really want to do for every comment I read online. Id much rather see evidence and links provided by the person trying to make the point.
saubeidl
I looked at the link you added and couldn't find any endorsement of Hamas. Could you share a specific video where he does so?
alangibson
> voiced
> endorsed
> praised
> interviewed
All protected by the constitution (for now).
Also, please provide references or there's no reason for anyone to take your comments seriously.
saubeidl
I'm not sure that's true, but even if it is - isn't all of that covered by the first amendment?
M4v3R
It is. That’s why he wasn’t arrested, just questioned. But it also raises red flags for certain three letter agencies and for a good reason.
goykasi
What is the good reason?
thomasingalls
TFA says he was questioned about his allegiance to Trump. Is that the good reason you were talking about?
Edit: to be clear, I think Hasan is a fool, but detaining him still smells like a political purity test
gosub100
And detaining people at the border is covered by the laws government CBP.
saubeidl
I looked at the link you added and couldn't find any endorsement of Hamas. Could you share a specific video where he does so? Inaccurately representing other people's views is what gets them detained in the current political climate.
qsort
It can be true at the same time that Hasan Piker is a piece of shit and what is happening here is scary. If they can do that to a US citizen, what happens the next time I visit the US as a foreigner?
I used to look up to the US because this kind of bullshit wouldn't fly. Was I mistaken?
lmm
Yes. The US might have offered some protections to its citizens in the past, but they never gave a fig for the rights of noncitizens.
strgcmc
Not mistaken at the time probably, assuming that was a few years ago.
Now, today? Yes it would be a mistake to continue to believe that US is somehow immune to "this kind of bullshit".
Decisions can only be judged relative to specific points in time and relevant context. Situations change. Looking up to America made more sense in the 80s/90s/00s/10s even, but by now in the 20s? There is nothing noble or pure left, not that we were ever all that noble or pure to begin with; still, the corruption is naked and explicit now, case in point - see $400M gift plane from Qatar.
toofy
i don’t follow him specifically, but what i have seen are videos of him saying “analysis does not equal an endorsement” followed by him saying it was expected behavior given the messy circumstances there, followed up again with “and so i’m clear, analysis does not equal an endorsement”
i have also seen videos of him unequivocally stating “the murders by hamas on innocent people was unequivocally disgusting and wrong, even though they’re wrong, this doesn’t magically justify the multiple times over murder of other innocents just for some kind of retribution, thousands of them are innocent people too.” [1]
i have also seen pieces edited from the same videos that always seem to remove the first and last part contexts and only show the out of context pieces.
again though, i haven’t spent much time, only wanted to add the wider context that i have personally seen.
[1] paraphrasing because i honestly don’t have time to spend hours digging through videos, but the sentiment is spot on to what ive seen him say multiple times.
johnduhart
> Yes it is. But the the 1st amendment does not say that any speech can have zero consequences for you.
The Government taking action against a citizen for voicing opinions it does not agree with falls pretty clearly into what the 1st amendment covers. This is not a "yelling fire in a crowded theater" type scenario where speech is being restricted for the benefit of many.
wesselbindt
> He even interviewed a known terrorist on his show
This is incorrect. The kid you're referring to is not a member of the Houthi tribe, and there's no evidence he's a terrorist aside from him saying some angry stuff on social media (and what teenage boy hasn't, especially one living right next to a country committing genocide). I'm sorry but that's just not enough to call someone a terrorist, and calling him one anyway is pretty shitty. Words have meaning, please try to treat them as such.
docdeek
> one living right next to a country committing genocide)...Words have meaning, please try to treat them as such
Are yoiu refering to Israel? If so, Yemen and the Houthis are not close to being ‘next to’ Israel - it’s about the same distance as Paris to Istanbul (approx. 2000km).
wesselbindt
I was thinking Saudi Arabia
ValveFan6969
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