Twitch Criticized for Its Approach to Israel and Palestine Content

Issue #283 | Oct. 22, 2024

On Sunday, Twitch released an apology statement acknowledging that it had “inadvertently” blocked user sign-ups from Palestine and Israel since Oct. 7, 2023. In the story below, Passionfruit’s Charlotte Colombo explains why this “unacceptable miss” happened and how creators spotted the error.

Though people from both Palestine and Israel were blocked from signing up, pro-Israel influencers have been pouring gasoline on the fire, bringing up instances of Twitch enabling what they perceive to be antisemitism.

For example, pro-Israel creators resurfaced a TwitchCon panel hosted by the “Ayyrabs” podcast, accusing the panel of antisemitic bias. It’s worth noting that shortly thereafter, as of Oct. 21, Twitch suspended the accounts of all five streamers on the panel.

As Aftermath explains here, the panel discussed a ranking list of who is allowed to say “habibi,” an Arabic term of endearment. The panel set the bottom tier as “Loves Sabra,” referring to people who think Sabra hummus is good. The panel interpreted this in a literal way, saying that Sabra is objectively a lousy hummus brand and anyone who loves a bad grocery store version of a delicious Arabic staple should not be able to say “habibi.”

But Pro-Israel influencers accused the panel of putting “Loves Sabra” on the bottom of the list as a coded way to be antisemitic, since “Sabra” is also a term to describe Jewish people from Israel. For context, Sabra is also currently a brand being boycotted by pro-Palestine protestors for its ties to the IDF. You can watch the full panel here if you’re curious.

Regardless, after speaking with the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League, Twitch allegedly suspended all the streamers who participated in the panel — Frogan, Denims, Vio, CapriSunnPapi, and Raffoulticket (who is Jewish) — for 30 days.

Meanwhile, last week, Twitch streamer Asmongold got a suspension, which is rumored to be only two weeks long, for saying he didn’t care that Palestinian civilians were being murdered, calling them “terrible people” from an “inferior culture.”

Needless to say, it’s been a whirlwind of a week on Twitch, calling into question why the platform’s enforcement of its own rules appears to be all over the place.

– Grace Stanley, Deputy Editor

PLATFORMS

Twitch Apologizes for Blocking Email Verification in Israel and Palestine

‘We deeply regret this unacceptable miss.’

By Charlotte Colombo, Passionfruit Contributor

Phone with twitch app over Map with Flags for Palestine and Israel

→ READ THE FULL STORY

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