Twitch has lifted their ban on sign-ups from Israel after facing intense public backlash. The ban, which had been in place for over a year, only came to light recently—as Twitch is facing a series of accusations to tolerate antisemitic content on the platform.
The company claimed the ban was implemented following the October 7, 2023, attacks to prevent the upload of graphic content related to the conflict in the region. However, this explanation didn’t sit well with many users, who pointed out that the issue had not been discovered for a whole year. Israeli news portal Ynet reported on the bug yesterday.
The streaming community was quick to highlight that Twitch hadn’t applied similar restrictions to other conflict zones like Ukraine, Russia, Sudan, or Yemen. Fans are scratching their heads and cannot understand why Twitch banned Israeli users in the first place.
Furthermore, it emerged that Twitch had only blocked email verification for sign-ups, while phone verification remained active. This half-measure further undermined the platform’s justification for the ban. The public is more than right to be suspicious about the measures.
Twitch CEO Dan Clancy attempted to address the situation, but his response was met with skepticism and frustration. Many users felt the explanation lacked transparency and failed to address the core issues at hand.
The platform seems to have a clear favoritism toward certain streamers. These days, the issue has become more apparent than ever as Twitch works to repair the damage caused by this incident.
For now, Israeli users can once again sign up for Twitch. But the questions raised by this ban about transparency, fairness, and the responsibilities of tech giants are far from resolved.
