Twitch has updated its policy to make its approach to suspensions more flexible. The platform’s previous “all-or-nothing” framework has been broken into two categories. “Streaming” and “chat” violations will account for rulebreaking behaviors in their titular mediums, though in both cases, most suspended streamers will retain more privileges than they previously had.
Previously, suspended streamers completely lost access to their Twitch accounts until they were reinstated. The bifurcated system will allow Twitch to strip certain types of access while leaving others untouched. Rule-breakers who committ streaming violations will be unable to go live and will have their chat disabled, but they’ll still have the option watch streams, chat on other channels, and view their account information. Those punished with chat suspensions will still be able to go live but will be unable to chat on other channels.
For streamers who are frequently active on Twitch and cover contentious topics, repeated suspensions have become a nuisance. Left-wing firebrand Hasan Piker, for example, has had his account suspended at least seven times, with most of those bans lasting only a few days.
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Twitch CEO Dan Clancy has validated streamer concerns regarding draconian suspensions, but he has also admitted that adressing that problem is easier said than done. After all, when you’re dealing with hours and hours of live content, it makes the likelihood of a damning one-second slip-up that much more likely.
A few recent developments have shown Twitch that it must revise its suspension policy, no matter the complications. For starters, there’s the Kick problem. Even though the CEO of the Twitch alternative, Ed Craven, claimed that banned Twitch streamers are not guaranteed to make big money on Kick, some suspended streamers have pivoted to new platforms rather than dealing with Twitch’s rules.
Twitch has also gotten itself into hot water by raking in subscription revenue from suspended accounts. Most importantly, however, the previous suspension policy just wasn’t fair to long-active streamers. More on-air time created more opportunities for permanent consequences, and that’s not a good way to build a devoted creator community.
So now, Twitch is shaking things up. In addition to the new suspension categories, a related policy shift will expunge suspensions from streamer records, with most black marks erased after 90 days. Hopefully, these changes will usher in a new era of copacetic relations between Twitch and its community members — though enforcing bans on the internet is rarely an exact science.
