Twitch deals out month-long bans to streamers using offensive slurs
Popular Twitch streamers Destiny and m0e received 30-day bans after repeated community infractions.
Twitch has run into a few racist disputes on its platform in the past. So perhaps it's no surprise the company is cracking down on repeat offenders.
In this case, Destiny and m0e - two popular streamers - have now been dealt 30-day bans for slurs in their videos.
"I was given two reasons for why I was banned," Destiny claimed in a video statement as reported by Polygon. "The first one was because I called the one dude a bad word. I called him the F-word — I don’t even know if I’m allowed to say it without getting banned on another platform, but I said the F-word, and called him a r***rd or whatever. Apparently that was bad.
"But they also clipped the thing where I was talking to my mom and I said, 'Holy s**t, maybe they should just f**king shoot Cubans who were swimming over to the US or something or what my mom wanted to do to Mexicans or whatever.'"
Destiny claims individuals from Twitch informed him it was these Cuban comments in particular which led to the 30-day ban. Critics of the move are already calling it a joke - Destiny himself is Hispanic - but Twitch's policies state that intent has to be clear.
"We support Twitch users who express diverse or unpopular points of view, or do so in humorous or controversial ways, but make your intent clear," the company guidelines read. "We don’t tolerate conduct that encourages or condones hate or harassment in any way. Ignorance is not an acceptable excuse for conduct that results in hate or harassment."
By the way, Destiny was previously dealt a seven-day ban for threatening another streamer, so the month-long ban isn't a spontaneous escalation here.
Either way, Destiny isn't alone. Fellow streamer m0e recieved a 30-day ban for repeatedly peppering his streams with words like "f****t" and "r****d". Another user dubbed Alfie gained a 24-hour ban for hateful speech in an unmonitored Twitch channel. That said, m0e and Alfie have stated they will try and change this behavior, even if they disagree with the bans themselves.
Combined, these are all signs that Twitch is holding streamers responsible for their content, and community members responsible for what's said in chat. I'm sure the response to these bans in the comments will be civil.