Twitch mass bans streamers in Middle East amid alleged tax evasion scandal
Unsplash/TwitchPopular streaming platform Twitch has mass banned streamers in the Middle East, following allegations of tax evasion across the region.
On February 20, 2022, Dexerto reported that Twitch streamers from middle eastern countries were reporting an issue with receiving payments from the Amazon-owned platform.
Multiple creators have contacted the platform regarding the issue, and all have received the same response.
Twitch said the payment issue is due to “a discrepancy with certain tax information provided during the onboarding process.”
On March 10, Streamerbans began reporting on Twitter a mass amount of affected streamers being issued with a temporary suspension from the platform.
We're sorry for the huge amount of tweets, we're turning them off for the near future. It does not appear to be a bug on our end, as the streamers do appear to be suspended.
— StreamerBans (@StreamerBans) March 10, 2022
Banned streamers react
Shortly after the mass ban, many streamers took to Twitter to express their distaste towards what happened.
Drazy had over 13,000 followers on his account before the ban and was among the first to express his feelings on Twitter.
He said: “It’s not a game to ban most of the Middle East Twitch streamers without clarifying the exact reasons or at least replaying on our emails with the solutions to the issue. Not having a Twitch Support in the Middle East is even worse.”
In a second tweet, he called the situation a “joke” and he hopes that subscribers to those banned receive a refund.
It’s not a game to band most of the Middle East Twitch streamers with out clarifying the exact reasons or at least replaying on our emails with the solutions to the issue and not having a Twitch Support in the Middle East is even worse @TwitchSupport #TwitchBand_ME_Streamers
— Drazy🧪 (@iDrazyy) March 10, 2022
iShark187 posted a screenshot of the email they received after getting banned, which states that it was due to a “community guidelines violation.”
The translated tweet says: “It is enough that they stopped the world’s money for almost two months. And now it’s 3 days!!!”
ما يكفي انهم وقفو فلوس العالم شهرين تقريباً
والحين سسبند 3 ايام !!!
خيير pic.twitter.com/So5mc5prZH— Louay (@lilshark_187) March 10, 2022
With a number of allegations in the Middle Eastern region, it may be just a matter of time before Twitch makes an official comment on the matter.
