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A little known Twitch streamer has been the recipient of some newfound attention due to his aggressive and irresponsible streaming habits. Most recently, the YouTuber Max the Yukoner has highlighted his poor behavior and advocated for Twitch to take action or suffer someone who blatantly violates their Terms of Service in their midst. So far, Twitch has chosen the latter.
Some things to consider when talking about Twitch rules and violations
There will be some words you will not find throughout my discussion of these events. Chief among them is the term “justice,” because justice is not something that can be decided by company policy. Justice is a social term and refers to a legal process, and, until Twitch becomes a legal authority, Twitch can not claim any action taken by them, positive or negative, is “justice.”
Another term you will fail to find is “censorship,” for much the same reason. Censorship, at least the specific kind of censorship that people tend to care enough to be outraged about, is something done by a government and not a company. Twitch refusing to host content they find objectionable is not censorship in the same way that removing an unruly guest from your house is not censorship.
Review of MilquetoastQT stream “content”
There’s not really a way to talk about what is going on without at least covering what MilquetoastQT produces as content. However, due to the nature of this streamer’s content, this will no doubt be found controversial. However, seeing as bear-poking seems to be one of my newfound pastimes, this should, at the very least, prove amusing.
The streamer in question produces content in the “Just Chatting” section of Twitch. This content consists almost entirely of watching him sit alone in front of a computer as he muses and projects his opinions out into the aether for his viewerbase to hear, and presumably to agree with.
Although these opinions are controversial themselves, the issue being discussed here is the manner in which he reacts when presented with perceived disagreement.
For some unknown and unknowable reason, this streamer reacts violently when triggered by some believed slight, and his uncontrollable reactions ultimately leads him to violate the one true code which binds all Twitch streamers, the Terms of Service agreement.
Examples of this MilquetoastQT's advocacy
I had intended to talk more about the type of content pushed by this streamer, but I think this selection of tweets and retweets should speak for themselves. Given his near constant activity on Twitter, it's obvious he wants someone to pay attention to them, so here it is.
And so on.
Discussion about what action Twitch should take
The natural course of action when someone is in violation of an area’s rules, whether that space is virtual or physical, is removal from that location by whoever has the authority to do so. If this were, for example, a public park, then it would be reasonable to expect a park ranger to remove him from this location and issue a ban or suspension of reentry.
Virtual spaces, such as the streaming environment managed by Twitch, have a very similar set of tools available, only they can be applied without the risk of physical confrontation. The only real difficulty in their application is that the size of the environment managed by Twitch is so large that many petty violators can often go undetected for quite some time.
However, being in violation of the rules set for a space, virtual or not, has nothing to do with whether or not they are detected. The violation is a violation regardless of who sees, and regardless of what might be gained or lost through appropriate application of the consequences of said violation.
Or put simply, despite the streamer’s size or whether or not someone reported his content, the appropriate action to take would not change, and for this sort of violation, the appropriate action is clear, removal from Twitch as a space.
YouTube bans content creator for harassment while Twitch tolerates hateful content
All this comes in the wake of YouTube banning Leafy. YouTube justified banning Leafy by identifying Leafy’s content as centered around harassment. As a result, although YouTube certainly has its own issues, it can at least be said that they do care about fair application of their rules within the bounds of their platform.
Twitch, inversely, has failed to adequately apply their own rules in an even handed manner. If we give Twitch the benefit of the doubt, then we can assume that this is not due to any possible agenda on behalf of Twitch but more likely simply due to a lack of the necessary manpower needed to appropriately enforce its values.
As that is far more likely to be the case, then we can assume that appropriate action will likely come in due time, but that further attention would be required. This particular streamer has avoided consequences for now almost certainly due to his small size, but if he has slipped through the cracks then we can imagine much more have as well.
