Twitch is yet again letting down its creators. This time, Twitch streamer PayMoneyWubby has been banned from the platform for what the platform says was breaking a rule. Twitch is ignoring his ban appeal.
PayMoneyWubby is a popular IRL streamer and YouTuber who got banned on November 15th for streaming in a restaurant.
The thing is, streaming in a restaurant (or a premises of commerce for that matter) isn't exactly forbidden by the community guidelines. It is acceptable as long as the streamer has permission from the owner. Section 4 of Twitch's terms of service makes this clear.
The streamer got banned and is being ignored… but he is not the only one
However, PayMoneyWubby got struck by the ban hammer and when he reached out to Twitch to appeal the ban by proving that the had permission from the owner, the platform just ignored him.
14 day ban for streaming in a restaurant that we had full manager permission to do so in. Holy shit @TwitchSupport, please fact check before pulling the trigger…. pic.twitter.com/vHHTXyzSje
By the time of writing this post, it's been 5 days since the streamer got banned and, judging by the state of his channel (still down), it's safe to assume that he hasn't got a response yet.
It's been nearly four days with zero reply from @twitch regarding my appeal. Banned wrongfully on a whim and ghosted for half a week (and counting). I love being placed in this awful stress limbo by a platform that claims to support creators.
His last update on the matter was on November 19th, when he took the discussion to Twitter and pointed out how he finds himself right now in “limbo” after being wrongfully banned from Twitch, a platform that is supposed to “support creators”.
It seems that Twitch is growing more unresponsive by the day, as these cases are becoming more common. A couple of weeks ago, Twitch streamer and partner Boneclinks got banned during an IRL Livestream, which resulted in the sudden loss of 80,000 followers.
Boneclinks had to wait for an entire week until Twitch finally decided to respond to him and lift the ban – which, by the way, should only have lasted 24 hours as it was based on a DMCA Claim.
Unfortunately, there is no bright side to this story, as Boneclinks got banned once more on November 18th without an explanation. As of now, he is stuck again in the long process of receiving an answer from Twitch Support.
Day 2 banned from twitch with no email telling me why or word from any twitch staff. Told to use support portal – they still haven't even replied to my old messages from first ban. Starting to really feel like twitch just doesn't care.
— Boneclinks (@TwitBoneclinks) November 20, 2019
PayMoneyWubby's fans hope that this doesn't happen to him as well, but given the fact that 5 days have passed without an answer, it is clear that he is already another victim of Twitch's indifference.
Update – November 23, 2019: PayMoneyWubby has been unbanned.