Twitch bans still make no sense

Twitch bans are still an inconsistent, unpredictable guessing game, lacking transparency for both streamers and their communities. I would like to ask Twitch: Why?

At TwitchCon earlier in 2024, the Amazon-owned platform stated its ambition to make moderation more transparent, with a number of changes coming in the new year.

These changes include providing the banned user with chat excerpts, if the violation took place in chat, or clips, if it was an on-stream infraction.

This is a fantastic change, certainly. For too long, streamers have been told that they broke a rule, and would be banned, but were never told what they actually did to break the rule.

Still, one glaring issue remains, even once Twitch makes these changes at some point in 2025: ban length. A generous view is that Twitch considers all possible context when determining whether a streamer will be locked out of their channel for 24 hours, 30 days, or forever.

A less generous view would imagine darts thrown at a dartboard or a spinning wheel of fortune deciding the length of a suspension. At this point, the latter almost seems a distinct possibility.

Hateful conduct on Twitch

On October 16, after deafening cries for action, Twitch banned Asmongold – one of their most well-known, long-time broadcasters. During a stream days prior, Asmongold had described the population of Palestine as belonging to an “inferior culture” and that he would shed no tears for them.

Of course, as always, the length of the ban was not made public, but journalist Rod Breslau reported it to be 14 days.

Why? For what reason could Twitch have determined a two-week suspension was the most appropriate?

Presumably (and we can only presume), Asmongold’s actions violated Twitch’s hateful conduct rules in the community guidelines. It was long thought that any violation of these guidelines resulted in a 30-day suspension by default.

After all, this was the punishment meted out to Destiny and m0E in 2019 for using a homophobic slur. It was also the punishment handed to Adin Ross in 2022, again for breaching hateful conduct rules. 30 days – simple, effective, a precedent set.

So, when NICKMERCS was banned in 2024 for using a transphobic slur, the precedent would suggest he too would receive a 30-day suspension. Instead, he was banned for 10 days. Why?

Then, there is the infamous JiDion ban. He was banned under the hateful conduct guidelines in January 2022, although not for using a slur, but for instigating a “hate raid” on Pokimane’s channel.

At first, he was suspended for 14 days, then, for reasons unknown, it was “upgraded” to a permanent ban. It was eventually lifted after 832 days.

Even with something as clear-cut as hateful conduct, which covers the use of slurs or derogatory comments about ethnicity, religion, or sexuality, there is no sense of precedent being applied. This opens Twitch up to exactly the kind of criticism they inevitably receive whenever a big name is handed a ban: fans will argue they are playing favorites or being harsh on so-called undesirables.

Asmongold has since criticized Twitch, saying, “I think Twitch is really bad and inconsistent with bans too. I’ve made tons of videos about it, and I think it continues to be true every day.”

But it’s not just hateful conduct that leads to accusations of favoritism – sexual content moderation is even more confusing.

The VTuber conundrum

In September, Twitch updated its wording regarding attire and appropriate coverage, to specifically warn VTubers about covering the “hips” of their models.

It sparked a wave of anger among the VTubing community, who felt strongly that they were being targeted unfairly, when compared to their non-VTuber counterparts, who stream IRL.

One glaring example provided showed an IRL streamer with a camera dedicated to their buttocks. They apparently escaped a ban for this, possibly because an empty hot tub was visible in the background, and they were in the Pools, Hot Tubs & Beaches category.

However, the streamer in question has been banned a total of 11 times since 2020 – with the longest lasting 9 days.

On September 15, the ban of VTuber fallenshadow compounded claims that Twitch has a separate set of rules for this niche.

Fallenshadow received a 30-day suspension for “self-harm” – because she was intoxicated on stream.

She asked, “Is drinking on stream against TOS now? Or is it just against the made-up second set of rules that my partner manager admitted moderation has for me (that I’m not allowed to see or hear about btw) because I am a petite woman with a high soft voice using a VTuber model that reflects me IRL?”

Fallenshadow did not use a racial slur or break sexual content rules. She had “three glasses of cream liquor” and was banned for 30 days.

Twitch is taking an important step in 2025 by increasing the transparency about why streamers are banned. However, the next step, which is just as important, is to make a transparent, precedent-based system to determine the length of bans.

Ultimately, Twitch is a private company that can ban anyone at any time for whatever reason it chooses. Context is important, with mitigating and aggravating factors to be considered. But devising and making public the system used for determining the length of a suspension would do everyone a favor, Twitch included.