Twitch unbans TriHex, Badbunny and more after fake DMCA’s of CBS debate

Jacob Hale

A number of Twitch streamers, including Mychal ‘Trihex’ Jefferson and BadBunny, were hit with DMCA takedowns for their streaming of the CBS Democratic Debate – and now Twitch have commented on the issue.

Seven Twitch partners were banned by the platform in the series of strikes, which were claims made not by CBS but a separate group named Praxis Political Legal. As well as Trihex and BadBunny, a number of political commenters were banned such as David Pakman, TheMajorityReport, and Justin Robert Young.

Shortly after the fact, Twitch reached out to Dexerto saying that they were “currently investigating DMCA notices directed to channels in connection with last night’s Democratic debate.” Now, they have taken action and made a statement following their investigation.

BadBunny believes Twitch needs to provide more protection for partners in these kinds of situations.

[ad name=”article1″]

Twitch released a statement to VICE Games on February 26 explaining that every creator is being reinstated access to their account, and that the copyright strikes were “false notices.”

The full statement was as follows:

“Twitch’s investigation has determined that the alleged copyright infringement notices directed to channels from Praxis Political are false. Twitch is reinstating access to each account and removing any strike attributed to a channel in connection with the notice, effective immediately. We regret that a false notice from a 3rd party disrupted any of our streamers and appreciate all who alerted us to the concerns about Praxis Political. The safety of our community is a top priority and it is unacceptable to target folks with false claims. The investigation continues as to the actor that submitted the notices.”

Political talk show TheMajorityReport were also hit with a fraudulent ban.

[ad name=”article2″]

As well as sorting out the issues the individual accounts faced, Twitch are clearly still investigating the third party involved and taking steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

The Praxis Political Legal website has since been wiped off the face of the Internet, with the contact email disabled to remove any public-facing aspect of the group.

With the streamers getting their accounts back, we should be seeing them get back into their content and commenting on upcoming political debates soon enough.

About The Author

Jacob is Dexerto’s UK Editor and Call of Duty esports specialist. With a BA (Hons) in English Literature and Creative Writing, he previously worked as an Editor at Ginx TV. Jacob was nominated for Journalist of the Year at the 2023 Esports Awards. Contact: jacob.hale@dexerto.com.