Just recently knew about this
Well, don't know what to think, overall the situation could had been handled a little better I think. Also, for once I found funny, that the FGC is not related, I could imagine the shitstorm now
Edit:
Official Twitch response
Here’s the deal:
Horror is a lead Twitch admin who happens to be a gay furry. He made his boyfriend’s fursona into a global twitch emote which pissed a lot of people off because it is considered inappropriate for twitch (the created emote for the fursona is also underage btw). He has also been very arrogant, disrespectful, and egotistical towards streamers and viewers in the past.
Anyway, speedrunner Duke_Bilgewater made a comment/joke to Horror that said:
“Hey Horror, what’s the easiest way into your pants so I can get a global emote too?”
Horror proceeded to IP ban him from Twitch.
This set off a chain of reactions that resulted in a lot of streamers and viewers preaching “Remove Horror”
Cyepher (maybe spelled wrong) also got ALL of his emotes banned simply the weren’t considered “appropriate” even though they are 100x more appropriate than Horror’s.
As a result, popular streamers Werster and Peaches also got banned and had their accounts removed for supporting the “Remove Horror” campaign. (Peaches and Werster appear to be IP banned as well, but there is no confirmation on this that I know of yet).
Peaches created controversy by naming his stream “Using my keyboard to remove Horror” and it was changed to “Using my keyboard to remove” by Twitch staff member Jason. Jason threatened to remove Peaches if he changed it back. Peaches changed the stream title to “Using my keyboard to remove Horrific zombies” and was later banned after his stream ended.
As of right now, streamers are being banned left and right, too many to even name in this document. A few others that have been removed are Cruxit, Dugongue, and ChalkedJanitor.
Now, everyone is becoming super pissed at Twitch and the blatant disrespect and unprofessionalism of Horror and his rampant banning. Also, Twitch staff member Jason has also said that he sees no issue with Horror’s actions and will not remove him from Twitch.
And just to clarify, nobody, including myself, is hating on Horror for being gay or for being a furry. He can live any lifestyle he chooses and that is of no concern to me or any of us. What we are pissed at is his behavior. The way he disrespects viewers and abuses his power is what is pissing off all of us.
So far, that’s the story.
This links to an image that shows some of Horror’s behavior and some of the story in picture form.
http://imgur.com/k7Awa7V
Well, don't know what to think, overall the situation could had been handled a little better I think. Also, for once I found funny, that the FGC is not related, I could imagine the shitstorm now
Edit:
Official Twitch response
We at Twitch apologize for our role in what has been an unfortunate and ugly chapter for the streaming community. We'd like to repair the damage that has been done to the relationship between Twitch and the Speedrunning community, in particular.
For context, here is a summary of the events as Twitch understands they occurred:
Twitch discovered that copyrighted images had been uploaded as emoticons to cyghfer’s chatroom on Twitch. Twitch policy clearly forbids unlicensed images from being used as subscription emoticons.
One of our staff members, Horror, notified cyghfer of this violation and removed the emoticons. Additionally, of the three emoticons which were removed, only two were actually unlicensed. One of them was actually licensed under Creative Commons and should not have been removed. We have notified cyghfer of our mistake in this matter.
Several Twitch users begin looking into our general policy for emoticons on Twitch, as they felt this policy was being enforced unevenly. One discovered the NightLight emoticon, a globally available emoticon, had been promoted to global status as a personal favor. It was clearly a licensed image however, as it had been commissioned explicitly as an emoticon for the Twitch site. The NightLight emoticon should not have been approved as a global emoticon and has been removed by request of the channel owner.
In reaction to this discovery about the NightLight emoticon and the previous emoticon removals, many users began to make jokes and other much less funny derogatory and/or offensive remarks in chat. Additionally, many of these users began harassing our staff and admins outside of Twitch chat using other social media channels.
Horror then banned many users from the Twitch site for this behavior. Harassment and/or defamation of any user on the site, including a staff member, is clearly against the Twitch terms of service. Some of the banned user’s remarks clearly cross this line, and those users were correctly banned. Other users made more innocuous remarks and should not have been banned. Horror was too close to this situation and should have recused himself in favor of less conflicted moderators. Being personally involved led to very poor decisions being made.
This whole situation began blowing up outside Twitch, including but not limited to Twitter and Reddit. One of our volunteer admins took it upon themselves to attempt to censor threads on Reddit. This was obviously a mistake, was not approved by Twitch, and the volunteer admin has since been removed. We at Twitch do not believe in censoring discussion, and more to the point know that it’s doomed to failure.
We take this incident very seriously and apologize for not better managing our staff, admins and policies regarding community moderation. There were several key mistakes made by Twitch in this process:
We failed to provide a valued partner with proper support when we needed to remove their unlicensed emoticons
We allowed a questionable emoticon to be made available in global chat
We failed to properly train our staff members to recuse themselves from personally involved situations, and as a result poor moderation decisions were made.
We did not have the structure or training in place in our moderation policies and training to deal with this episode properly.
What we're doing now and in the future:
Twitch users who were unfairly banned due to this incident are being systematically unbanned today.
The Twitch partners who were banned due to this incident have been provisionally unbanned pending investigation.
The NightLight emoticon has been removed.
Disciplinary action is being taken with regard to Twitch staff and members of the volunteer admin team who overstepped their authority.
Due to this incident, we are embarking on a full review of Twitch admin policies and community moderation procedures.
Horror has voluntarily stepped back from public facing moderation work at Twitch, as right now pretty much every moderation issue will be tainted by this episode.
In Our Defense:
Note that harassment and defamation (as opposed to criticism) of Twitch employees, partners, users, broadcasters, and humans in general is strictly prohibited by our terms of service and remain grounds for removal. This kind of behavior will not be tolerated. Users who committed acts of harassment or defamation will remain banned. Feel free to complain, protest, petition, etc. if you feel Twitch is making a mistake. Don’t harass or defame people.
Twitch staff did not ask any reddit moderators to remove or censor any threads.
“Twitch Administrators” are volunteer moderators who are not employed by Twitch. The activities depicted here and being falsely attributed to Twitch staff were undertaken by a volunteer admin who has since been removed from the program.
If you have further questions or comments, feel free to contact us directly via email at support@twitch.tv. Due to high expected volume, please be patient with us for responses in general on this topic.