Why These Gamers Were Banned From Twitch In 2020

Twitch bans have been getting a lot of attention in 2020, with some being levied against some very powerful and influential people — including the president of the United States of America. Naturally, a lot of gamers are getting caught up in the bans, too. For starters, the site seems to be cracking down on explicit content and racially charged language. Other streamers were seemingly banned over sexual harassment allegations. Then, on top of everything else, a lot of streamers were hit with copyright strikes, which sent them scrambling to take down any videos containing copyrighted music.

Some apparent discrepancies in how bans are decided and handed out has led many to accuse Twitch of having double standards. Sometimes the people banned by Twitch don't even seem to know the reason why it happened. Other times, the streaming site itself admits that the bans were mistakes. Ban lengths have been known to range anywhere from less than an hour to outright permanent. The point is, Twitch has been keeping its banhammer busy lately, and it sometimes seems impossible to know where and why it will fall next.

From the deserved, to the questionable, to the downright silly, here are some of the many bans that Twitch has issued in 2020.

Popular Destiny streamer SayNoToRage was banned from Twitch after several women came forward to say he had harassed or inappropriately touched them. The ban took effect on July 2, 2020, and SayNoToRage released a short video the next day confirming it. A statement from Twitch regarding harassment and sexual abuse in the community suggested that his ban — and the bans of others in similar situations – may be permanent.

The streamer released a video apologizing for his past behavior, but then changed his approach. He took down the apology video and uploaded a new video giving his side of the story. The new video, which is over an hour long, claimed to offer "significant evidence" the allegations against him weren't true. That video didn't save his Twitch channel, though.

According to The Verge, the allegations against SayNoToRage led to a deluge of stories involving other streamers. Given that, it's not totally clear why SayNoToRage was banned while others weren't. Twitch's statement, however, seems to  suggest it's because the company investigated and found the claims against him credible.

If that's the case, it may be a long time before Twitch users see SayNoToRage on the platform again — if at all.

Amouranth, a popular cosplay and lifestyle streamer, caught a ban from Twitch after being tricked into showing a user's profile pic which contained an inappropriate image. She had been reading appeals from people banned from her channel, according to Dexerto, and realized too late that this particular one had a raunchy image attached. She immediately stopped the stream and took down the offending video, which she believed would prevent any punishment from Twitch.

"Twitch said that if something pops up on your screen now, as long as you end the stream and delete the VOD, and delete the clips, then you're fine. So it should be okay," she was quoted as saying. However, apparently that wasn't enough this time, and Twitch slapped her with a 24-hour ban for the explicit content. 

Amouranth was, perhaps understandably, upset that she was being punished for falling for a trick. She explained the situation in an ASMR stream later that week, and voiced her frustration that Twitch was giving, as she put it, "power to the trolls." However, while undoubtedly annoying, the 24-hour ban was just a slap on the wrist for the extremely popular streamer.

A popular Brazillian streamer caught a seven day ban from Twitch after using a racial slur on stream, according to TechTudo (via Google Translate). Flavio "Jukes" Fernandes, an ex-pro League of Legends player, had a habit of playfully changing the names of items while streaming. This time it came back to bite him. During a livestream on March 25, 2020, he said that he wasn't doing any damage to the enemy and would need to get the Black Cleaver, a powerful damage-boosting item. However, in this case he changed the name to "Black [slur]," which quickly led to his seven day ban from the streaming service.

TechTudo spoke to Jukes' team, which claimed that his use of the word was unintentional and without malice, and that Jukes "understands the weight that this word has and the damage it may have caused the people." (via Google Translate) They said that he regretted the incident and would accept Twitch's punishment, which began on March 30, 2020.

On April 6, 2020, Jukes announced his return to Twitch with a simple tweet reading "good evening" (via Google Translate) and a link to his reactivated channel.

Felix "xQc" Lengyel is another streamer who got a gentle tap from Twitch's banhammer after accidentally showing some explicit content. He briefly and bluntly explained what happened in a tweet on June 12, 2020, announcing that he'd been given a 24-hour ban for having a picture of two gorillas mating up on his stream for "about a second." xQc quickly followed up on his original tweet by saying that he was confused why he was being punished, as the picture had only been up for a very short time and he didn't believe any harm had been done. Regardless, he said that although he wasn't happy about the ban, he wouldn't fight it.

While the streamer himself accepted his punishment calmly (relatively speaking), his followers were another story. Some of the replies to xQc's announcement accused Twitch of being "sexist against men," claiming that popular female streamers only got warnings for much worse violations. Some fans felt frustration toward Twitch's terms of service and its apparent inconsistency in enforcing them.

Justified or not, xQc's ban was soon over and he was back to business as usual.

Alinity's ban is somewhat unique in that it began as a self-imposed one before Twitch made it official. During a stream Alinity lifted her t-shirt a little higher than she meant to, briefly exposing one of her nipples. When Twitch was slow to respond to the incident, she gave herself a "three day ban," saying that it was only fair. Twitch eventually seemed to agree with the streamer, and imposed an official 24 hour ban that overlapped with the last day of Alinity's self-imposed one. In a seemingly unprecedented move, Alinity actually tried to fight the 24-hour ban to make it longer, but the streaming service reinstated her channel after one day.

Alinity's Twitter account has been set to private in response to the abuse she regularly receives on that site. However, Dot Esports linked and quoted the relevant Tweets to provide background for this incident.

According to The Gamer, Alinity's attempt to punish herself for the slip has caused even more backlash against her, as people accuse her of "twisting the situation to make it look like she's taking responsibility for her actions." 

Official or self-imposed, Alinity's ban is long since over and she is back to streaming.

Another Brazilian streamer found himself on the business end of the banhammer more than once in 2020 after using slurs on stream. YoDa, one of the country's biggest League of Legends players, caught a seven-day suspension in April 2020 after using a slur during a live broadcast. In a statement that not unlike that of fellow streamer Jukes, Start quoted YoDa as saying (via Google Translate), "If I really offended someone, I apologize from the bottom of my heart." 

Start noted that this ban came during a series of similar suspensions for other Brazilian streamers. Esportstalk claims that the problem may stem from cultural differences; the slurs these streamers used may not carry the same weight in Brazilian culture and are thus thrown around easily, while in other cultures they're extremely offensive.

YoDa received another ban in May 2020, this time only for a single day. The streamer took to Twitter to vent his frustration, arguing that he'd spent eight years working hard to produce content for Twitch, and that the repeated bans were making him doubtful about his future (translation via Google Translate). However, as of right now his Twitch channel with its 1.7 million followers is still up and active.

Some streamers get banned for a day, some get banned for a week, and a few get banned for life. And then there's Lirik, who got his Twitch account disabled for a whopping 42 minutes. The ban came after a live stream "Lirik and Chill" episode, which included the streamer showing a clip that appeared to include a blurred-out sex toy. Less than an hour after his ban took effect, Lirik made a statement on Twitter apologizing for his mistake in showing the clip and thanking Twitch for its quick work in resolving the situation. 

Lirik's tweet included a link to StreamerBans, a bot that tracks and announces when Twitch partners get banned and unbannned. The bot gave the total length of Lirik's ban as "42 minutes, 22 seconds, 584 milliseconds." People seemed amused at the short punishment, with some wondering whether Lirik now had the fastest unban in Twitch's history (he didn't, as TimTheTatman once received a ban that the same bot clocked at a mere 10 minutes).

Still, Lirik and his fans were grateful that the ban was lifted and that he could get back to work.

Kaceytron was hit with a 10-day ban following a hurtful and insensitive joke about intentionally spreading COVID-19. When asked if she would kiss someone whom she knew had the novel coronavirus, she responded, "Yes, and we would leave quarantine and try to spread it as much as possible, because the world would be a better place without old and poor people." 

Kaceytron made the statement on The Rajj Show, a controversial talk show on Twitch hosted by "Rajj Patel," whose real name is Austin. However, while The Rajj Show reportedly thrives on controversy, Kaceytron's joke went too far for Twitch. That episode of The Rajj Show aired on March 11, 2020. Just a few days later on March 17, 2020, she announced that she had been "indefinitely suspended" for hateful conduct. She also claimed in her tweet that, "[She doesn't] condone hatred towards any person and it was a poor reflection of [her] character."

In this case, "indefinite" ended up only being 10 days. Kaceytron made another tweet on March 28 announcing that her ban was lifted and she would be returning to streaming the following week.

Bryan Le, better known by his Twitch alias RiceGum, received a three-day ban from Twitch after a risque stream featuring two women. It was originally believed that one of the women had shown part of her breast, scoring RiceGum a temporary ban for nudity. However, the streamer himself said that the problem was actually the content of the stream. He had been taking questions from viewers, and many of them were sexual in nature. That was evidently what drew Twitch's ire in that particular instance.

RiceGum quickly took down the offending video and apologized, but it wasn't enough to avoid a ban. Insider quoted a now-deleted tweet from RiceGum, who said he planned to "take this time to reflect on mistakes." If past stories are any indication, the streamer is no stranger to controversy. It's possible the accumulation of errors caused RiceGum to rethink his approach a little bit.

Or perhaps not, as RiceGum's period of reflection didn't last very long. His ban was lifted three days later, and the streamer was right back to playing Fortnite while chatting with women.

No discussion about Twitch bans in 2020 would be complete without mentioning one of the big mysteries of the year. In late June 2020, popular streamer Dr Disrespect received a ban that is believed to be permanent. That would be pretty big news on its own, but the kicker here is that most people still have no idea why it happened. Those few who probably do know, including the Doc himself, are being remarkably tight-lipped. 

The hush-hush around the issue has only taken people's curiosity to higher levels. Outside investigations into likely causes for the ban have, so far, turned up nothing. For now, fans simply have no information. They don't know why one of Twitch's most popular streamers was suddenly hit with a ban, nor when said ban will be lifted (if ever). They don't even why people won't talk about the ban in detail, though some — like esports consultant Rod Breslau — have stated there is too much "importance and sensitivity around the subject" to elaborate.

For now, all that's known is that the Doc's channel is still offline, and seems likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future.