Twitch Making Big Changes to Strikes and Bans

Key Takeaways

• Twitch will be more transparent about bans and strikes, showing users and streamers exactly what led to the violation.
• Long-term streamers will have strikes expire to prevent minor infractions from putting their accounts at risk.
• Changes will start in early 2025, with streamers hopeful for earlier implementation to improve their experience.

Twitch has revealed that it’s making some changes to the ways that strikes and bans work on its streaming site. The change follows numerous requests from streamers and viewers to make the ban process more transparent at Twitch.

Avoiding bans and strikes at Twitch can be tricky. In theory, it should just be a matter of following the rules, but Twitch has a reputation for issuing bans and strikes for reasons Twitch streamers don’t understand. Twitch simply informs them that they’ve done something that’s led to a strike against their account, making it difficult to ensure that the problem doesn’t happen again.

During TwitchCon, the streaming company revealed that it’s going to make some changes that should make the process better for both sides of the equation. The company has announced that for the chat, those who break the rules will be sent a snippet of exactly where the violation occurred in the user’s email and appeals portal notifications. Later, the company will be doing the same for the video streams themselves. Streamers who violate the rules will be shown a clip of where the violation occurred, so they’ll know exactly what triggered the Twitch ban and can avoid doing it again. Both types of strikes will give users an opportunity to appeal, as well.

Twitch Changes its Strike System

In addition to being more transparent about what users and streamers did wrong to incur Twitch’s wrath, the company is also adjusting how its strikes work. Twitch notes that long-term streamers can often have their account be at risk over minor infractions due to prior strikes being kept on a permanent record. In theory, an account could go years without getting in trouble only to see itself banned for a small issue. Going forward, Twitch will reward good behavior by allowing strikes to expire and be removed from a streamer’s record. However, suspensions will continue to be handed out for those that commit higher-level infractions.

Twitch has said that the new strike expiration will begin in early 2025. However, Twitch hasn’t said when it will be implementing the plan to inform users of what caused a strike from either the chat or the stream. With any luck, that update will arrive in 2024, as streamers have been complaining about getting Twitch strikes for unknown reasons for years. Hopefully, this helps streamers to cut down on the number of strikes they’re handed overall, making the experience better for everyone.