Jon Zherka finally unbanned from Twitch after controversial 3-month suspension

Popular Twitch streamer Jon Zherka, best known for his IRL streams, has finally been unbanned from the platform, over three months after being allegedly banned for showing a woman in a bikini on stream.

Jon Zherka is one of Twitch’s most-followed IRL streamers, a popular name in the Just Chatting category since he started his channel in 2019. At the time of writing, he has over 160k followers and saw huge growth towards the end of 2020.

But Zherka was banned on March 20 in mysterious circumstances, and revealed a month later that the ban was because he had “clicked a photo of a girl in a bikini on stream for too long”. He then called out Twitch over ‘hypocrisy’ amid the so-called ‘hot tub meta’.

And after hot tub streamer Amouranth was unbanned from Twitch after three days on the sidelines amid controversial ASMR practices, Zherka voiced his frustration at the platform once more. “How am I still banned…” he tweeted.

Now, however, Zherka is back after three months in the wilderness, as his channel was reactivated on June 26.

Zherka had produced some content for his YouTube channel during his time out, but it was clear from the inconsistency of uploads that he was missing his Twitch stomping ground.

He tweeted a week after his ban that his mental health had taken a turn for the worse. “Going from 15 hour days with my chat to being alone and at the bottom of my mental health is actually the deepest low I’ve ever felt,” he said.

While Zherka is yet to respond publicly to his unban, fans will hope to see him return to streaming as soon as possible.

Zherka’s unban shows that Twitch doesn’t simply forget about long-banned streamers, but it feels increasingly unlikely by the day we’ll see Dr Disrespect return to the platform. It’s been exactly a year since he was permabanned, and the situation still remains shrouded in mystery.