Twitch, in its never-ending quest to create a more inclusive community by making streamers fear for their livelihoods, recently banned streamer Viperous for seven days for "using hateful slurs." According to Viperous, the ban was for using the word "nerd," something she says she does on the channel all the time.
While Viperous was playing a shooter game, she allegedly said "what is this nerd doing?" after she was killed by someone crouching in the corner. The moment was captured by one of her Twitter followers, who originally thought that she had said a different n-word. However, he played the clip back in slow-motion and realized that she had said "nerd."
According to Viperous, her subscribers who were watching the stream have been refunded.
This is far from the only contentious ban that Twitch has handed out recently. Some examples include when streamer Dellor was banned for "self-harm" after breaking a keyboard over his head and Quqco andCinCinBear were banned for "suggestive clothing" after wearing a Chun Li costume and workout clothes, respectively.
Twitch hasn't been very popular with fans recently, mostly because of its haphazard approach to banning its streamers for strange and unpredictable reasons. This year, big-name streamers Shroud, Ninja and KingGothalion have all jumped ship for competing platform Mixer, and Pokimane and TimTheTatman have also hinted that they might move. Meanwhile, CouRageJD has moved over to YouTube steaming.
Whether the streamers jumping ship will have any major effect on Twitch's streaming stranglehold remains to be seen, but one thing's for sure: there's no shortage of people who are fed up with the streaming powerhouse, and Twitch may want to find a new approach to its moderation policies.