On the same day that Joe Biden was sworn in, Twitch announced that it bans Donald Trump’s account indefinitely. For those who don’t know, It is a platform used by millions of people for streaming video games. While the service was not particularly used by Trump, he did have an account on the platform.
Twitch becomes the next platform to ban Trump’s account indefinitely
Like Twitter, Twitch made that decision to ban the account indefinitely because of the risk it posed of encouraging violence. The company assured that his most recent comments could be considered dangerous to the community. Recent statements of Trump violate the platform’s policies.
“The President’s statements continue to be interpreted as calls to action, and we are taking this action to remove the potential for harm to our community and the general public. Twitch has clear rules that prohibit hateful conduct, harassment, or incitement of violence on our service, and we consider off-service events when making enforcement decisions. However, the events of the past weeks have highlighted a gap with respect to rhetoric that encourages violence, regardless of whether or not it was directly streamed on Twitch. We will be updating our policies as a result of our consideration of this situation,” Twitch officials explained.
This last point is important. Until now, the platform only considered elements when suspending an account that was limited to its behavior within the streaming platform. This meant that if a creator did not make racist comments or incite violence within Twitch, they were in a ‘safe’ zone. Now the platform could consider whether a creator outside this platform commits actions that violate the company’s policies to determine a suspension.
The famous streaming platform is not the only platform that has increased Trump’s ban. YouTube also took action against the former president of the United States. Only Facebook didn’t announce new actions against Trump.
