Last year, Twitch was under some scrutiny for banning a “hot tub streamer” for following the rules. Nothing she did on their site was an actual violation, and it may have been an automated response due to harassment. But there was something different. Twitch banned the streamer for good, despite other streamers who break this rule only getting three days. What gives?
Well, that streamer was infamously the only popular transgender hot tub streamer on the platform.
This year, we’re getting a two-fer. Twitch banned not one, but two transgender streamers for discussing the abuse they receive on the platform. Twitch banned Keffals after she showed a list of anti-LGBTQ+ slurs she receives in streams. Twitch, famously, does extremely little to stem the hate that LGBTQ+, women, and non-white streamers receive. They often have to rely on third party chat censors and moderators who work to remove hate from the chat themselves. They also banned trans actor Ian Alexander, known for their work on The OA and Star Trek: Discovery, who told their harassers to “touch grass.” That’s it, that’s all they did. Their account was suspended for removing hateful content and telling the people posting it to touch grass. None of that is against the rules.
Ian’s ban was indefinite, and Twitch still hasn’t explained why. Twitch denied Keffals appeal, again, with no explanation.
Twitch’s tradition of banning transgender users indefinitely with no proof of rule breaking is in full force once again. Seeing as it was in July of last year that they targeted trans streamer Anne Atomic, perhaps it’s just part of a yearly purge of trans streamers for the platform.
Automated Bias
😑 @Twitch suspended my account. i was receiving racist and transphobic troll comments where they were saying slurs. i censored them, told the trolls to touch some grass, and then my account got suspended mid-stream.
i appealed the suspension, idk when i’ll get my channel back pic.twitter.com/H5IrsVdcuF
— IAN – ACAB (@ianaIexander) July 20, 2022
The fact that this isn’t the first time that Twitch suspended a trans streamer for charges with nothing to do with their actual behavior is troubling. It’s likely that Twitch, like many other platforms, uses a system that automatically bans people when they receive many reports at once. However, this has long been a problem, and Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and every other platform knows that. Bigots target non-white people, LGBTQ+ people, and women with tactics to shut them up or kick them off platforms. These include vile harassment, doxxing, that is, revealing their personal information and address online, and using a website’s report function. Using bots or a large coordinated effort, harassers report someone at the same time, many times. This often triggers automatic bans.
A DDOS attack is a “distributed denial of service” attack. Basically, many people trigger bots from around the globe to hit a single website and take it down. The traffic is too much for the servers to handle, and the website crashes. Websites have DDOS protection. When an influx of hits come from bot sources or to the same site, or when they simply come in too frequently, the website blocks that traffic. This technology has existed for many years, decades, even. However, despite knowing that trolls overwhelmingly do a similar style of attack on marginalized users, websites haven’t rolled out protection against it.
Twitch-Approved Hate
twitch rejected my appeal. I am banned for another 28 days for displaying a list of hateful slurs that were actually hurled at me by bigots in order to illustrate the kind of harassment I receive for being an openly trans twitch streamer. I have never been this disappointed
— koofal (@keffals) July 21, 2022
If you know that a policy only affects one group of people, and continue to allow that policy, you’re actively choosing to continue that bias. We see it in policing and, oddly enough, online content moderation. Twitch knows their system is broken. They routinely stand behind this system anyway. One of their largest trans streamers, Keffals, recently had her appeal denied. All she did was talk about the hateful abuse she received while streaming on the platform. This isn’t against the rules, but Twitch doesn’t seem to care.
Twitch knows they have an issue. Last year they claimed they would move to protect marginalized communities on their platforms better. This wave of bans of trans users with no immediate appeal or solution is clear they haven’t made protecting users a priority.
Well, not non-white, trans, LGBTQ+, or female users, anyway.
Sources:
- Amelia Hansford, Pink News