Forsen removes several Twitch emotes as new harassment policy goes into effect
Viagame/TwitchPopular streamer Sebastian ‘Forsen’ Fors has decided to remove some emotes from his channel in case they’re used to harass other streamers once Twitch’s new hate and harassment policy goes into effect.
Forsen, who has only recently come off an indefinite Twitch ban which saw him suspended from the platform for over a month, is taking no chances when it comes to risking further discipline.
Part of Twitch’s new policy, which went into effect on January 22, prohibits certain emote combinations. According to Twitch, emote combinations are no different than speech or imagery in that they can “dehumanize or perpetuate negative stereotypes.”
“Emotes are an important part of how we communicate with one another on Twitch, but they can be used maliciously,” the site said back when the rules were first announced. “So emote combinations, even without additional text used in chat, will be held to this policy.”
Fearing that he could be held accountable if viewers misused his emotes, Forsen explained to his chat that he would be removing some.
“I need to remove some emotes, I think it’s four or five, that can be used to harass other streamers,” he stated the day before the policy took effect. “ForsenTake, forsenA, forsenBreak, forsenDED.”
The four emotes listed were actually intended to be used as a combination to begin with. The emotes spell out “Stop streaming” and then include an icon showing zero viewers.
Twitch/ForsenIt’s easy to see why Forsen doesn’t want to take any chances in the event his fans use the emotes to tell others to stop streaming or poke fun of their low viewer numbers.
So far, however, Fors hasn’t removed the emotes from his channel just yet. Given that Twitch’s new policy has now taken effect though, it shouldn’t be long until he actually deletes them from his page.
Twitch themselves have also taken the liberty of removing “controversial” global emotes recently. Most notably, the platform changed up the site’s iconic PogChamp emote after its creator made questionable remarks on Twitter.
