Confidential Twitch “Strike Guide” allegedly leaks just days after streamer pay reveal

Bill Cooney
Twitch strike guide leak

Days after a major Twitch earnings leak, the site has allegedly had its Strike Guide, which determines which content is and isn’t allowed to be streamed, made public.

Twitch is the most popular streaming platform online, but just a few days after an October 6 leak revealed the income of every top streamer from the site, another has possibly made at least part of its confidential “Strike Guide” public. 

The site has never shared their internal guidelines for what exactly is and isn’t allowed on the site, and what can result in a ban or suspension. However, claims of a “secret” guide for employees began to circulate in April 2021.

On October 9, a link to an Imgur folder containing multiple PDFs was posted to the r/Twitch subreddit, with the poster claiming they were the actual Twitch “Strike Guide” internal documents, explaining what counts as a strike and what streamers can be banned for. The Reddit link was quickly removed by moderators, but Dexerto has gone through the Imgur documents directly.

Overall, there are more than 30 different topics covered for what is and isn’t allowed on Twitch. For each one, there’s multiple examples of what staff should deny, or take action on immediately, allow, or escalate to higher ups for a decision.

These topics cover the full gamut of what Twitch considers ranging from accidental and intentional nudity, to targeted harassment and hateful slurs. What is and isn’t considered “sexual content” on the site is mentioned as well, along with a section covering gambling streams.

Another part details how to handle streams that end up featuring swatting, arrest, medical emergencies, and even death. Opposite these heavy topics the documents also detail how to handle minor stuff like sending loud and/or brightly flashing video links to streamers.

Sections on multi-channel abuse, spam bots, and targeted abuse towards others are also present. Again, we haven’t been able to confirm whether or not these documents are actual internal leaks from Twitch.

Twitch logo purple background
If legit, this would be the second major Twitch leak in less than a week.

For fans wondering if any mention of Dr Disrespect is actually banned or not, there’s no sign of him in the documents that we could find. Even though there are rumors his likeness is blacklisted from Twitch, those remain unfounded for now.

Dexerto has reached out to Twitch for comment on the alleged leak and will update this story appropriately if they respond.

About The Author

Bill is a former writer at Dexerto based in Iowa, who covered esports, gaming and online entertainment for more than two years. With the US team, Bill covered Overwatch, CSGO, Influencer culture, and everything in between.