Clicky

After hijacking Ninja’s old channel, Twitch’s algorithm is sometimes using it to recommend porn

"This wouldn't even have been an issue if they didnt use my channel to promote others in the first place...", Ninja said.

Tired of censorship and surveillance?

Defend free speech and individual liberty online. Push back against Big Tech and media gatekeepers. Subscribe to Reclaim The Net.

Fortnite streamer Ninja, who is popular with kids, has called out Amazon-owned Twitch for using his channel to advertise other streams after he left to stream exclusively on Microsoft-owned Mixer. One of the top streams that Twitch has today promoted on Ninja’s channel page was hardcore porn – meaning that anyone that went to the twitch.tv/Ninja page was greeted with a stream recommendation that showed pornographic material.

source: @keemstar

A few days ago, when Ninja left Twitch for Mixer, fans of Ninja suggested that Twitch was being “salty” when it was revealed that Twitch was using Ninja’s defunct profile to encourage people to check out other Twitch streams. This is something that Twitch doesn’t do for other streamers who no longer stream on the platform – suggesting that they made an exception and wanted to retain users after losing one of their biggest streamers.

Usually, when a streamer stops streaming on Twitch, their Video on Demand content is still available for viewing. However, when Ninja left for Mixer, Twitch made an exception and removed Ninja’s videos – instead using the space to promote other channels.

When you now go to the 28-year-old’s Twitch profile you find a post reading: ‘The streamer you’re looking for is in another castle. Check out these popular live channels.’

A selection of Twitch-recommended streams are then visible. Today, those recommendations included hardcore pornography.

The recommended channels shown there are in no way endorsed or associated with Ninja and today Ninja expressed his concern that his channel page was being used to promote such explicit content – especially since he knows that he has a young audience.

Click here to display content from Twitter.
Learn more in Twitter’s privacy policy.

Ninja today said that he was “disgusted” at Twitch’s move – saying, “If you go to twitch.tv/Ninja they advertise other channels. The don’t do this for anyone else that’s offline by the way. Just me,” the streamer said in a video posted to Twitter. “There was a porn account that was being number one recommended on my channel and I have no say in any of this stuff.”

The streamer criticized Twitch for using his profile to promote the pornographic material to his young audience. “This wouldn’t even have been an issue if they didn’t use my channel to promote others in the first place…”, Ninja said.

“For anyone who saw that, for anyone whose kids, or didn’t obviously want to see that, I apologize and I’m sorry,” he concluded.

 

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net.

Tired of censorship and surveillance?

Defend free speech and individual liberty online. Push back against Big Tech and media gatekeepers. Subscribe to Reclaim The Net.

Read more

Share