Twitch temporarily bans Donald Trump for ‘hateful conduct’

Streaming platform Twitch has temporarily banned US president Donald Trump for ‘hateful conduct’. The latest in Twitch’s high-profile suspensions (Twitch just banned gamer Dr Disrespect a couple of days ago), Trump’s account now shows this message - “Sorry. Unless you’ve got a time machine, that content is unavailable”. Twitch also said that the offensive content has also been removed.

One of the streams that lead to the ban was a rebroadcast of Trump’s kickoff rally where he said that Mexico was sending rapists into the United States. Twitch also flagged racist comments made at Trump’s recent Tulsa rally.

A Twitch spokesperson said that politicians on Twitch must adhere to their terms of service and community guidelines and that they do not make exceptions for content and will take action if that content is reported for violating rules.

This statement from Twitch was originally issued last year when Trump’s channel was launched on the platform.

The suspension on Trump’s account comes just a week after Twitch promised to crack down on harassment within its community after reports of harassment and assault from streamers started pouring in. The recent bans are a sign that Twitch is starting to consider moderation a lot more seriously than it used to. Trump’s racist language is allowed on other platforms since he is a politician and the president of the US, but Twitch clearly isn’t having it.

Twitch mentioned last week that they would be issuing permanent bans to streamers in response to the allegations that are being reported. The first streamer to be cracked down on seems to be Dr Disrespect, one of Twitch’s most popular streamers. Twitch has, however, categorically refused to confirm why Dr Disrespect was banned - there were no allegations against him and Dr Disrespect has also said that he has not been informed why his channel was banned.

Trump’s Twitch page was launched in October last year to broadcast rallies and campaign events. And just minutes before Twitch suspended Trump, Reddit banned a number of subreddits for harassment including r/The_Donald. This subreddit is not affiliated to the US president directly though.