Boiler Room has officially announced that they’ve shut down their chatroom. Now, viewers of the live-stream will only be able to comment on the live broadcasts and videos on their Facebook platform.

“RIP BR chatroom, 2010 – 16. You were awful but we loved you (sorta),” BR tweeted. “Everyone throw your toxic abuse at the DJs on Facebook instead, it's where all the cool kids are at these days so we hear.”

 

Several DJs have faced relentless abuse while playing sets. In June, Glaswegian artist Nightwave played a Paris Boiler Room show, and was on the receiving end of vulgar, misogynistic comments. “She must be giving someone good head”, “who’s girlfriend is this?” read another. Preceding this, Toxe, a Russian DJ, was subjected to more vitriolic abuse that BR host Gabriel Szatan said was “verging on revenge porn”.

In its wake, Boiler Room promised to take action against sexist, dull bros that populated the comments with vile abuse, stating: “The #1 worst thing about what we do are the trash comments”. The platformed said it would crack down on hate messages by introducing moderators.

Speaking to FACT at the time, Szatan said: “We obviously can’t just shut down any comment when someone is like, ‘They fucked up that mix, that song is shit’ but we can’t allow straight up vile transphobic, misogynistic, racist things to carry on,” he said, “We’re scratching our heads on determining how to monitor it but we know that today is the line in the sand. It (will be) difficult, but that’s not to absolve ourselves. As the biggest live streaming company in the underground that should stand (up) for its liberal values, we know now that it’s our responsibility to lead the field.”

Now, viewers will only be able to comment on BR’s Facebook streams to make moderating misogyny, homophobia, racism and transphobia easier.

Again, speaking to FACT about the latest move, Szatan said it’s “more of a function switch on the website than a way to eradicate our community." He explained that “(On) Facebook we have mods now for every show and what blew up with Nightwave has thankfully really abated.”

Bye BR chatroom, we won’t miss ya.