Twitch Fans Are Confused By This Banned Bird

People who want to hurt others always seem to find a way around bans and rules. Twitch banned certain emotes in the past because users spammed chats with them to signify racist jokes or other offensive connotations, but new emotes and phrases seem to pop up periodically, giving chats new tools to work around moderators and bots designed to keep things civil. The latest emote to be banned doesn't seem to have negative associations at all, though. In fact, it appears to be little more than a cute wiggly bird.

Cosplayer and streamer Kara Corvus recently tweeted to inform her fans that some of her custom emotes had been banned. The emotes in question appear to be cartoonish birds with their backs facing the viewer. Kara Corvus posted a screenshot of the email she received from Twitch, which explained that the emotes had been banned for sexual content. The email said that all emotes with "sexualized torsos" or "body fluids" would be banned, yet the dancing bird in question seemed to have neither. In fact, as one fan pointed out, birds don't even have torsos. 

One commenter described the emotes as innocent enough, saying, "it's just cartoon characters wiggling they booty." Another commenter speculated that a "crackdown" is on the way for Twitch emotes. Many fans were quick to point out that Twitch seems to have a double standard when deciding what content to ban. As one fan stated, Twitch seems to be okay with hot tub streams — even creating an entirely new category for them — but is seriously cracking down on cartoon emotes that are looking away from the audience.

It should be noted that this isn't the first confusing strike on Kara Corvus' channel, either. Last year, the streamer took to YouTube to explain to her fans that her channel had received a 3-day suspension, seemingly without any explanation from Twitch. 

Streamer Mushu recently spoke out about the double standard Twitch seems to employ. After Twitch disallowed a "booty" emote on her stream, she argued that although it made sense for the streaming platform to have content rules, it should enforce them against everyone. 

Mushu was referencing the controversial ASMR and hot tub streams from content creators like Amouranth and Indiefoxx. Both of those streamers have included suggestive content on their channels and only received temporary suspensions, while other streamers have harsher consequences for lesser actions. Of course, in the time since Mushu's "booty" emote was banned, Indiefoxx has had her Twitch partnership revoked, showing that Twitch may be stepping up its efforts to curb whatever it deems to be inappropriate content.

Overall, it seems that streamers and fans alike want the platform's rules to make more sense and to be enforced equally. Recent bans and strange decisions on Twitch have led to some gamers wondering if the platform can maintain its grip on the streaming community. After all, Facebook Gaming has announced a sweet deal that allows streamers to retain more of their profits, and while the partnership isn't perfect, many gamers could be considering an exodus from Twitch. The future of streaming is uncertain, but gamers have made their desire for equal treatment clear.