Twitch Controversies – Biggest and most controversial Twitch events

Plenty of Twitch Controversies happened over the past few years. These controversies can be a lot of different things. Sometimes it’s about a streamer’s behavior, and other times it is more about how Twitch itself is ran. Most weeks, there are Twitch controversies that make the news. Big or small, it is quite common.

Twitch is the central location for gaming online. You’ll find the biggest streamers and content creators on Twitch. It pulls in more viewing hours in a day than you’re going to find on any other platform.  There can be all sorts of problems that pop up when you’re watching Twitch. While most streamers try to behave, Twitch controversy is fairly common with so many different people on the platform.

These are the biggest Twitch controversies, and what you need to know about is Twitch safe despite these problems:

Biggest Twitch Controversies

There are loads of Twitch controversies that pop up pretty regularly. Even for streamers who aren’t often in trouble like Shroud or Asmongold. There are too many streamers that have a thing or two going on, and too little space to mention all of them.

ASMR & Hot Tub Meta

The most recent Twitch controversy is the so-called ‘hot tub meta’ and the followup ASMR drama. The controversy is two fold, based on the Twitch rule on what women can wear on stream and what can should stream contain. A while ago, Twitch amended its rules to only allow revealing clothing like underwear ‘in context’. Pretty quickly, streamers figured out that as long as they sat near some water, they could essentially still wear only underwear. Other streamers have branded this a ‘hot tub meta’, since sitting in revealing clothing near a Jacuzzi gives you an easier time getting view.

The other aspect of this development is the sexualization of content through simply wearing skimpy clothes. It’s no suprise most streamers that do hot tub streams are in it to sell “softcore erotica” to viewers. The controversy peaked when Twitch streamers turned to ASMR to continue the meta. Instead of wearing skimpy clothes and dip into a tub, they could lie on  a bed and speak or leak a microphone ear.

By the end of it all, even Twitch had enough and started penalizing streamers. Highly influential streamers Kaitlyn “Amouranth” Siragusa and Jenelle “Indiefoxx” Dagres both got temporarily banned by Twitch. Keep in mind, most Twitch girls aren’t all supportive of this meta, and a lot of people think it is an unfair twisting of Twitch’s rules.

Viewer Sues Twitch for Sexual Content

One particularly fun Twitch controversy from 2020 was a story of a Twitch viewer suing the company itself. He claimed that sexually suggestive content had gotten him addicted to the streamers, with a detrimental effect on his life. However, this case was obviously dismissed once it reached the court.

Twitch Language Bans

Fairly recently, Twitch altered the language you could use on the site.  Some people wonder why the twitch chat is toxic, and banning words can be seen as an attempt to clear that up. They banned ‘Virgin’, ‘Incel’, and ‘Simp’. This was to cut down on the words being used in an insulting way.

Part of what makes this one of the biggest twitch controversies is the reaction. A lot of people pointed out that these were insulting terms that could be specifically lobbed at one of the biggest audiences for Twitch. They could be used to insult viewers who throw big donations to girls streaming like Pokimane. Twitch’s simp audience is an important of the platform, and it seems they banned these terms to avoid insulting them. It is worth noting that this did not work at all, the words saw an increase in use.

This Week’s Meta: term “simp” banned on @Twitch

Following its ban, chat mentions of “simp” doubled compared to previous 15 day average.

Read our post for more chat analytics and insights:https://t.co/DiNZtRTimb pic.twitter.com/tfk7W0Ahwa

— Stream Hatchet (@StreamHatchet) December 18, 2020

Banned Emotes

One Twitch controversy that has had a site-wide impact is removing the PogChamp emote, and heavily control the usage of TriHard emote. They were one of the most popular ones on the platform, but one has now been completely removed and other rarely used. The first one was removed because of the streamer becoming involved in spreading misinformation about vaccines, far-right conspiracies, and particularly calling for civil unrest during January 2021 protests and insurrection in the US Capitol. PogChamp has been cycled around other images since before picking the most popular. The TriHard emote was usually used when a specific casters or player was shown on screen to point/mock their skin tone.

Another set of emotes usually taken down are from long time content creator Sebastian “Forsen” Fors. Most recently ForsenTake, ForsenA, ForsenBreak, and ForsenDE were all removed due to the emotes being used to abuse streamers into stopping streams. When put side to side the four emotes spell “Stop Streaming”, and were used to abuse low viewer count streamers by raiders of Forsen fans.

Sexual Assault Accusations

There have been a lot of accusations of sexual assault and abuse from various parts of the Twitch community. These are too lengthy to go into specific detail. However, it has touched on the majority of different games. It even extends to esports players on Twitch. A lot of these came in June and July 2020, but they’ve been pretty constant since. Streamers Sinatraa, MethodJosh have been embroiled in the most publicized ones, but plenty of streamers have ended up on the chopping block. And rightfully so.

The happening on the streaming platform is typically a little less serious, but there is a hidden undertone of silent compliance with abuse on the platform.

DrDisrespect Controversies and Bans

DrDisrespect could fill up an entire list of his own. The streamer is pretty frequently getting into problems, breaking rules, and even having completely unexplained occurrences to his stream. The most recent DrDisrespect Twitch controversy was probably his weird disappearance. DrDisrespect reacted strangely on stream to a message, then it was cut off. He was then banned, and why he had been banned has never really been explained. The streamer has claimed since that even he doesn’t know why he was banned. It’s unsure if we’re ever going to get closure on this one, but the Dr has brought his sizable fanbase to YouTube.

One thing he could have been banned for is the number of Twitch controversies he’s been involved in before. He’s been accused of making racist jokes on stream, reading covid-19 conspiracy theories without clearly drawing a line between fact and fiction, and entering a woman’s bathroom at E3. There are smaller examples too, but these are his big controversies. Essentially, DrDisrespect uses humor and a style that can often go too far. On the other hand, he is clearly playing up those aspects of his stream for humor.

xQc Bans

xQc is one of the most famous content creators and one of the notable professional gamers on the platform. He has frequently run into problems with content. He has ‘accidentally’ streamed pornographic content in the past, along with some specifically of gorillas. More recently, he cheated in a Fall Guys competition. This is one of the Twitch controversies which just seems pointlet, and he’s been handed bans for each offense.

You can read the entire streamer page and all of his controversies in our xQc Streamer page.

Twitch DMCA Strikes

2020 saw Twitch moving to enforce some DMCA rules about copyrighted music on streams. This has led to quite a lot of takedowns, and most twitch streamers weren’t very happy with how sensitive the filter for music was.  While some are left wondering is Twitch safe for music, some streamers feel feature it regardless.

Plenty entertainment companies sent out copyright claims on Twitch and YouTube or sent out copyright infringement notice to Twitch. The platform decided to automatically enforce strikes to evade having to analyze things on case by case basis. This created a nightmare in itself to manage with all the unfairly stricken streamers. Twitch did however implement a 3-strike policy to prevent streamers from instantly getting booted from the platform.