Pokimane reveals how bizarre TikTok strike locked her Twitter account

Brad Norton
Pokimane confused

Imane ‘Pokimane’ Anys had her Twitter account locked momentarily and the explanation behind it all has left everyone scratching their heads.

The internet’s biggest content creators are constantly having to watch what they post online. A brief snippet of a song while walking down a random street could be enough to get their Twitch account taken down, for instance.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has long been a touchy subject on both Twitch and YouTube, though the controversy spreads much further across social media. Now, Pokimane is the latest to be struck down as this time, her Twitter account was caught out..

While a handful of tweets were made back in January, a DMCA strike came through almost 12 months later. Her Twitter account was locked without warning, but now we know exactly why.

A warning message came through to her Twitter account as a result of the temporary block. Alongside this standard DMCA outline, an email soon followed up linking the exact tweets in question.

“My Twitter account got locked because I tweeted ‘I love girls’ and did a TikTok,” she said on December 28. The first issue seemingly had nothing to do with material under copyright; it’s the TikTok that appeared to have flagged her account.

The January 11 upload was a simple video of Pokimane dancing along to Doja Cat’s ‘Say So. It became a huge trend at the start of the year. She was just the latest in a long list of influencers to put her spin on it.

This video has since been removed from the platform, almost 12 months after the fact. In order to unlock her account, all Pokimane had to do was “review Twitter’s Copyright Policy.”

Moments later and her presence on the social media network was restored.

Pokimane Twitter
The original post has already been taken down from Pokimane’s Twitter.

If multiple DMCA strikes take down her account again in the near future, she could be looking at a proper suspension or even a ban. That’s the extreme end of things, though. What’s more likely is that nothing further comes as a result of this lone strike.

Given how this only just came through for a TikTok uploaded back in January, however, it’s safe to assume Pokimane – along with countless other influencers – will all be taking a look back. Essentially any snippet of material under copyright must be removed across the board.

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About The Author

Brad Norton is the Australian Managing Editor at Dexerto. He graduated from Swinburne University with a Bachelor’s degree in journalism and has been working full-time in the field for the past six years at the likes of Gamurs Group and now Dexerto. He loves all things single-player gaming (with Uncharted a personal favorite) but has a history on the competitive side having previously run Oceanic esports org Mindfreak. You can contact Brad at brad.norton@dexerto.com