Twitch Is Shrugging Off A Really Terrible Mistake

A video from RyanWasTaken, a former Twitch streamer and online content creator, has recently gained traction online, forcing Twitch to review his ban from over a year ago. Now, Twitch has reversed its decision to ban Ryan, but refused to fully address the situation with a personalized response.

First, some context. In a YouTube video, Ryan said that after receiving a letter from Twitch stating that because Ryan's channel had seemingly "committed[ed] purchase fraud," his account was banned permanently. Ryan explained that he hadn't engaged in any suspicious monetary activities, and that he's not sure why he was banned. However, Ryan did provide one theory as to why this happened: Ryan believed Twitch's system flagged a few generous sub gifts as fraudulent activity, and Twitch decided to ban without any sort of opportunity for review. 

According to Ryan, Twitch also refrained from paying him for the month he was banned, leaving thousands of sub gifts in limbo. Ryan also stated that the ban affected his mental health, putting him in a dark space and discouraging him from pursuing content creation.

After Ryan released the video explaining his situation, viewers shared it online in an attempt to help reverse the ban. Eventually, Twitch did take notice, and decided to review Ryan's case. On the same day that Ryan released his YouTube video asking for help, Twitch reversed Ryan's ban. Ryan shared the letter from Twitch on his Twitter account, exclaiming, "GUYS THEY DID IT THANK YOU SO MUCH I'M ACTUALLY CRYING." Ryan also explained that he can't make sense of how the finances from his channel will work out, or if he or his subs will ever see the money that has been stuck in limbo for over a year. Ryan promised to update his audience as soon as he finds out anything else.

Twitch's letter to Ryan seemed like a standard response, without any indication that an individual human reviewed Ryan's case. In other words, Twitch seemed to shrug off Ryan's case by giving him what he wanted without addressing the real problem: its faulty review systems. Earlier this year, several streamers criticized Twitch for unfair bans due to age constraints, which were not applied consistently to all streamers, only a select few. Some fans of RyanWasTaken are already accusing Twitch of not really caring about Ryan's situation in the first place.

Twitch has displayed a shady side in the past, and has banned many streamers for various reasons. Hopefully this case will help Twitch realize it needs more human interaction and fewer automated systems making all the decisions.