Australian Military Cuts Ties With YouTubers Over Tweets, Rape Jokes

A report by Sydney newspaper the Daily Telegraph has resulted in the Australian Defence Force cutting ties with two prominent Australian YouTubers, Elliott “Muselk” Watkins (pictured above, a member of Australia’s Overwatch World Cup Team in 2017) and Alen “ChampChong” Catak.

This story originally appeared on Kotaku Australia.

According to the cover story, which was re-reported on broadcast TV yesterday, the ADF spent AUD$52,500 for the two to produce sponsored content. The videos were intended to drive younger Australians to sign up for the armed forces, and one of the said videos can be seen below.

UPDATE: the video has been removed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edtbd3wXJfY

The Telegraph’s report went through comments made by Muselk and ChampChong in previous posts and YouTube videos, writing that the pair had made rape jokes online and other derogatory comments. The story also ran with screencaps of old ChampChong tweets, including the ones referenced below:

Examples of tweets sent by Catak include one post in 2013 where he wrote: “not being racist, but movies are made by jews, they care for every last cent lol.” In another tweet written the same year, Catak joked about harassing women writing: “This girl was dressed like a whore & I asked ‘how much’ She replied ‘what’ I was like ‘how much for you’ & she was like ‘u think I’m a slut’.”

…

In 2016, Watkins also uploaded a video to YouTube titled “The RACIST Bastion!”. The video featured audio of him laughing when another game player says he is being “raped” in the corner. In 2017 he also uploaded a video where he flippantly described a game character he did not like as “the face of cancer”.

– Daily Telegraph, August 15, 2018

Defence Minister Marise Payne has ordered the cancellation of the ADF’s arrangement with the pair, and said the decision to hire the two was a failure of due diligence. “The material is offensive and has no place in any relationship with the Australian Defence Force or the Defence organisation,” the Minister is quoted as saying.

Neither ChampChong or Muselk has made any comment publicly, or to The Telegraph, about the story. Click Management, the talent management agency of which Muselk is a director, said in an email to Kotaku that they “won’t be making a comment” about the story.