Twitch sued for $25m over “suggestive” streamers Alinity, Pokimane, more
Pokimane/Alinity/Twitch
Based on court documents obtained by Dexerto, the plaintiff Erik Estavillo, who has previously sued Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and Blizzard, submitted the formal complaint to court on June 15 seeking a lawsuit, and Twitch itself was served with an official summons on June 19.
According to the complaint, filed in the Santa Clara Superior Court of California, Estavillo suffers from several medical issues that require him to rely entirely on the internet for all of his entertainment, as well as OCD and sex addiction, which the complaint claims Twitch only makes worse.
“Twitch has extremely exacerbated his condition by displaying many sexually suggestive women streamers through Twitch’s twisted programming net code,” the complaint states, “making it nearly impossible for the plaintiff to use Twitch without being exposed to such sexual content.”
Estavillo, who is following 786 female streamers and 0 male streamers according to the complaint, argues that the site doesn’t offer a way to filter streamers by gender; therefore, he’s forced to choose a “game and/or category to watch, with thumbnails showing these scantily clad women, alongside men, of being the only streaming channels available to him.”
“In addition, Twitch also takes advantage of the plaintiff and many other sexually addicted viewers by allowing them to ‘Subscribe, Donate, or Pay Bits’ to these women streamers,” it continues. “Twitch uses this immediate gratification reward system against their sexually addicted viewers no different than how a Casino would.”
The complaint goes on to list several female streamers it claims “continues to expose viewers who just want to see people playing video games on Twitch, but instead get exposed to sexually addictive material and content on a consistent and regular basis daily.” These include:
- Amouranth
- Quqco
- ST Peach
- JadeTheJaguar
- Pink_Sparkles
- Valeria7K
- DanielaAzuage_
- lilchipmunk
- iaaras2
- theRaychul
- KrystiPryde
- SonjaShio
- Gavrilka
- MizzyRose
- KayPikeFashion
- Alinity
- QTCinderella
- Pokimane
- Velvet_7
- Loserfruit
In requesting relief, the complaint wants all the streamers listed above permanently banned for violating Twitch’s TOS, along with $25 million dollars “to be split between the plaintiff and other Twitch Prime Turbo Subscribers,” with any leftover going to various charities.
Whether or not the lawsuit will go anywhere in court remains to be seen, but according to court documents, Twitch was officially served with a summons by the court on June 19 – so they will have to respond in some way or the other.
As we mentioned earlier, Estavillo has filed numerous lawsuits against other companies before, but it will be interesting to see how Twitch responds and how the scenario plays out.
You can read the full complaint against Twitch from Estavillo here.
