Twitch suspends Donald Trump's channel for "hateful conduct"
Somehow, 2020 can still surprise me
The president of the United States of America has been temporarily banned from video game streaming platform Twitch, is an actual event in the year of our Molyneux 2020. Donald Trump's official account had rebroadcast old campaign speeches, which Twitch moderators identify as containing "hateful conduct." So the account is on time-out to... think about what it's done? Of all the channels on Twitch, this seems the least likely to reform its behaviour. Somehow, 2020 still has the capacity to surprise me.
The Trump Team channel is in trouble for two broadcasts of past rallies with his usual hateful rambling. In particular, Twitch objected to parts of a campaign rally from 2016 and June's Tulsa rally, CNBC report. Exactly what he said isn't worth repeating; you get the picture by now. While the length of the temp ban is unclear, Twitch say those videos are binned.
"Hateful conduct is not allowed on Twitch," the company said in a statement. "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."
Twitch must be quite keen to clean up their image right now. After years of their lax attitude towards sexual harrassment on the platform, the past fortnight has brought hundreds of accusations of harrassment, sexual abuse, and predatory behaviour against Twitch streamers. Twitch are investigating claims and punishing with bans. A number of game developers and games media have faced accusations too.