The contentious business relationship between Twitch and Hasan Piker continues to prove complicated for both sides. On May 25, Piker was issued a 24-hour ban for “improper handling of terrorist propaganda.” The ban followed a recent stream where Piker spoke in depth about the Israel embassy staff shooter. His stream included an analysis of the shooter’s manifesto.
Per Twitch’s community guidelines, the platform says that it “does not allow content that depicts, glorifies, encourages, or supports terrorism.” In addition to this, the guidelines also say that streamers shouldn’t “display or link terrorist or extremist propaganda, including graphic pictures or footage of terrorist or extremist violence, even for the purposes of denouncing such content.”
Reacting to the ban on X, Piker wrote: “I covered the motives of the Israeli embassy staff shooter. Twitch ToS dictates a suspension for even critical examination of the manifesto.”
Piker’s Twitch Suspension Raises Questions About Press Freedom
The next day, Piker reiterated these assertions in a YouTube video about his ban. He cited the terms of service policy to fans and said that “this is not a good thing for press freedom.”
Piker also pointed out that the manifesto was in the public domain after being shared by multiple journalists.
“I critically examined the manifesto because people were already making assumptions online,” he said in the clip. “It’s what I’ve always done – covering breaking news stories with context and analysis to help people think critically.”
Piker then suggested that his views on Israel and Palestine were behind the ban, as he had analysed terrorist manifestos on stream before.
He then admitted that he might pivot to YouTube, or at least run a dual-stream on the platform. “I hope you can keep supporting me and watching me on YouTube,” he said. “Because even if I get deplatformed from Twitch completely, I will still find a way. And even if I am deplatformed entirely from every single website, the truth will still come out.”
As of now, Piker is back on Twitch, but a change could easily be on the horizon.
