Streaming giant Twitch announced Monday that President Trump’s account on the platform would be temporarily banned because of his remarks at the Tulsa rally.
“Hateful conduct is not allowed on Twitch,” Twitch stated. “In line with our policies, President Trump’s channel has been issued a temporary suspension from Twitch for comments made on stream, and the offending content has been removed.”
It is currently unclear when, if at all, the account will be restored.
The alleged hateful actions in question involved Trump’s anecdote about a “tough hombre” breaking into a woman’s house, and no law enforcement coming to help. The context was a broader point about current discussions in the Democratic party about slashing funding for or even abolishing the nation’s police departments. Twitch also cited Trump’s now five-year-old comments about drugs and rapists coming over the border.
Twitch is the world’s largest video game streaming platform, boasting over 15 million unique monthly users. Jeff Bezos’ Amazon bought out the streamer in 2014 for over a billion dollars. Since October of 2019, the Trump campaign has used the platform to stream rallies and campaign videos. Other politicians, including Bernie Sanders, remain on the platform.
The suspension follows a trend of tech giants censoring voices on the right. The same night, Reddit banned thousands of accounts from its platform, including the largest pro-Trump subreddit on the site. Twitter has also begun “fact-checking” the president’s tweets, while Snapchat has purged Trump from its Discover page while promoting Biden’s campaign posts. Twitch is the first, however, to go as far as purposefully removing the president’s entire account.
