A streamer practices cosplay by painting her naked body to look like a character from a video game or a movie and streams the painting live. Forkgirl has frequently had to deal with moderating on Twitch. Now she says her channel has been deleted, her account banned, and that without any notification from Twitch. She is appalled.
About this streamer: The streamer Forkgirl has 12,192 followers on Twitch. On average, 107 people watch her when she paints her body in the “Beauty & Body Art” category or chats with her viewers in Just Chatting. (via sullygnome)
This is her complaint: The streamer claims she woke up on Friday morning and her Twitch channel was deleted. There was no email, no communication from Twitch. She feels wronged.
Even two days later, she hasn’t reached anyone at Twitch who can explain to her why she was banned or what is going on.
It particularly affects the streamer because she was permanently banned from Twitch in February already. Even then, she felt wronged.
Presumably, it was only a discussion about body painting on popular US gaming sites that led to her ban being lifted, albeit with a warning: she must fully cover her breasts.
The streamer now says she had planned to do cosplay based on Tim Burton films in June. She has already invested so much time, money, and energy into this thing, and now the ban ruins her motivation.
Body painter feels targeted
This is the problem with body painting: Body painting is explicitly allowed as an art form on Twitch. They recently reiterated the recent nudity rules, stating that streaming body painting is possible as long as streamers start with a base coat so that no naked breasts are visible and the genital area is covered. Nevertheless, there seem to be recurring issues and alleged rule violations that lead to bans in body painting.
Body painters feel “targeted” and as if their careers on Twitch are always on the brink of arbitrary termination. Since some body painters see Twitch as an important source of income, this hurts.
No communication from Twitch
This is the problem in this case: What the streamer is mainly complaining about is that there is no communication from Twitch regarding the ban. Twitch is often accused of treating streamers unequally.
Recently, top streamer Lirik was also banned from Twitch. However, he was able to resolve the issue within 45 minutes. Lirik and other big streamers apparently have communication channels available to them, which other streamers like Forkgirl envy when something flares up.
This “lack of communication” from Twitch affects not only small streamers. Even the largest German streamer Marcel “MontanaBlack” Eris has complained about Twitch: He received no response to his questions regarding a ban, even though he is so big on Twitch.
