After her first stream onTwitchin a month, streamer Annialis was bewildered to discover that she’d been suspended.
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Unlike otherpopular Twitch streamers, Annialis wasn’t suspended due to her behavior or due to inappropriate content in her streams, but instead because the emote in question apparently utilized art that was created by someone else. The claimant, known only as RiceGnat, filed a claim that the art employed in the emote belonged to them, and Twitch therefore had no choice but to remove the emote. The temporary suspension placed on Annialis was likely intended as a slap on the wrist to dissuade future art theft.
Luckily for Annialis, the suspension was extremely short. The initial email claimed that she would be unable to stream for 24 hours, and it appears that Twitch was true to its word, as she’s since been able to return to the platform. However, she does now have a copyright strike on her account, so she’ll have to be careful, or furtherTwitch suspensionscould be longer lasting.
While this case is relatively open and shut, Annialis was quick to point out that Twitch has much bigger problems with its content creators that have gone unaddressed. The site has received plenty of criticism for banning users for no good reason, while others who have beenaccused of animal abuseand other bad behaviors have been left unscathed by the platform.
Twitch isn’t the only streaming platform to struggle with moderating its users and streamers. YouTube has received similar criticisms in the past for its copyright claim system taking down videos and channels for minor infractions, while content creators who - again - produced content containing animal abuse have gone unpunished. These problems on both Twitch and YouTube have inspired users to create petitions calling for thepermanent ban of certain offenders.
