While the world of Twitch streaming is currently a bit of a mixed bag, with many streamers being forced to deal with the consequences of a spike in swattings, it looks as though the platform has avoided becoming embroiled in one more high-profile controversy.
As reported by Cecilia D'Anastasio and Davey Alba of Bloomberg, online influencer Andrew Tate has been the subject of bans from a number of platforms recently. Though his presence on Twitch had remained untouched.
However, as discovered by The Washington Post’s Nathan Grayson, this is no longer the case, with Tate seemingly having deleted his own channel on the streaming platform.
TateSpeech hits a bit of a brick wall
As cited in the Bloomberg report, Tate’s content had been drawing the ire of many people on social media, with the ex-kickboxer having faced criticism (and subsequently banned from a host of platforms) for policy violations centred around alleged hate speech.
Prior to the disabling of some of Tate’s YouTube channels on Monday, the likes of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter had already been forced to take action against him. This is largely due to the same controversial views that attracted a large number of viewers to Tate’s posts being heavily criticised by non-fans and identified as sexist by many.
The eventual result of this attention was a petition from advocacy group Hope Not Hate, which called for Tate’s content to be removed by the internet’s biggest platforms.
“This is a huge moment for the major tech companies, which have a history of failing to act quickly enough to remove harmful content and creators. We know the cost this has had time and again.” claimed Hope Not Hate in its blog post about the petition.
In a statement to Bloomberg, a spokesperson for Tate suggested that banning him and his content from social media platforms wouldn’t affect a positive change to society.
Tate’s Twitch channel was among the smallest of his numerous outlets, possessing only around 50k followers at the time of its deletion: though he had appeared in the broadcasts of other streamers with larger followings.
While most of Tate’s official accounts and channels seem to be on hiatus as of writing, it seems as though his loyal legion of fans will continue to repost his views in the near future.
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