Twitch's ban policy is getting more and more ridiculous

 

Twitch's ban policy is increasingly criticized. The platform has issued permanent bans against large streamers, but had to take them back. Apparently the public pressure was too great. The arbitrary blocking and the lack of transparency of Twitch ensure constant discussions. Our author Schuhmann also sees a big construction site on Twitch here.

Which case is making the headlines right now? Twitch permanently banned Fortnite pro Clix this week . He announced this on his Twitter account.

16-year-old Clix is ​​currently number 30 on Twitch and one of the platform's rising stars.

Clix was apparently banned because a pornographic image could be seen in his stream for a short time: One of his folders in Windows had a thumbnail that was no longer rated 12. This thumbnail was - apparently accidentally - seen for a short time in his Twitch stream.

Neither Clix nor Twitch specifically stated that the streamer was permanently banned for this, but it stands to reason that this "Oops" error was the cause of the perma-ban.

But the ban on Clix outraged so many of his fans that over 22,000 posts appeared on Twitter under the hashtag "#FreeClix". The hashtag was even trending. The streamer was banned from Twitch in just a day and a half.

Twitch does not publicly name reasons for the ban and the exemption of Clix. They never do that - except for US presidents.

Twitch regularly gives way to pressure from Twitter

Has that happened before? Yes, there was almost the same case with the streamer Forsen in December 2020. The Swedish streamer had also erroneously shown a pornographic picture, was nicknamed "Horsen" and was permanently blocked by Twitch.

But this “permanent ban” did not last long either , but was lifted after a month.

The same thing happened to a streamer in Brazil: She was permanently banned from Twitch , apparently because her young daughter was seen without a t-shirt. The streamer sounded the alarm that she was losing her existence. The case went big on Twitter and Twitch withdrew the ban without comment.

Whoever shouts loud enough is released

That's the problem with these bans : It creates the impression that you can bypass a permanent ban on Twitch if you can find enough people on Twitter who see the ban as unfair and raise the alarm loud enough. Then who will notice on Twitch and take back the ban.

As a result, it has the effect that small streamers without range remain banned, while the large streamers manage to be unbanned again.

As a result, bans from Twitch are constantly discussed. Again and again, Twitch looks really bad.

Permanent bans on Twitch can only be lifted through a successful appeal. The reason they are so bitter is that they deprive streamers of the basis of existence. They lose their job, so to speak.

Because Twitch is silent, they always look bad

The problem with this is that we only ever know the side of the banned streamer, as Twitch does not comment on the bans. Because they are silent, those responsible at Twitch have only two options to react:

• Either they let the spell stand and say nothing - then they seem like they don't care about "injustice"
• or they take back the spell and say nothing - then they appear as if they had no backbone, would banish arbitrarily and then collapse afterwards

Why is Twitch silent? That is their policy. Apparently there could be trouble if you make the reasons for the ban public, maybe for legal reasons. In general, it is unusual for platforms like Twitch to get involved in such discussions - they can obviously only lose.

The fact is that Twitch does not comment on bans and it is up to the Twitch streamer whether he will reveal the reason for the ban and how he will then present the ban in public.

Bans from Twitch seem arbitrary

These issues make Twitch's bans even more ridiculous: Twitch's ban rules seem difficult and arbitrary. The Twitch CEO, Emmet Shear, emphasized that you always have to consider the context with bans , but when you compare individual cases, the bans and their penalties appear arbitrary:

• For example, a streamer was only banned for 3 days, even though she put on a sex show and showed her genitals - but that was "by mistake".
• The streamer Alinity exposed and accidentally showed her breast and was banned for 24 hours.
• However, other streamers receive permanent bans that a pornographic photo was seen in their stream for seconds and apparently completely unintentionally.
• Also Bodypainterinnen are regularly banned permanently, what they can not understand.
• Streamers are also repeatedly banned because someone on Twitch misunderstands a streamer and believes they said one forbidden word while saying another. uttered completely innocent word indistinctly

These discrepancies are currently causing a discussion about Twitch's ban policy. In addition, the mood has already heated up because many streamers are worried about their channel after Twitch moved into the focus of the music industry and distributed warnings and bans due to copyright infringements, some of which were years ago.

How could you do better? A wise suggestion on how to improve ban policy came from Cohh Carnage in late January. He's on the Twitch player advisory board.

He has the simple idea: let the streamer talk about what really happened before a ban. Carnage suggests letting the account managers who oversee streamers speak to those affected about the ban.

Many misunderstandings could be cleared up within a short time. That would certainly be a step forward to take the poison out of the matter.

At least with "misunderstandings", Twitch would then no longer look so bad. And streamers would have fewer arguments to portray themselves as “completely innocent victims” and to turn fans against Twitch if you would talk to them beforehand.

The strange incident about the ban of DrDisrespect is still in the room: He was a top streamer on Twitch for years, but was then banned.

To this day, no one knows exactly why DrDisrespect was banned from Twitch. But the idea is circulating: Twitch banned DrDisrespect in order to get out of the highly endowed contract with him.