The streaming platform Twitch has permanently banned Dan Saltman today. He says this is a personal consequence from Twitch CEO Dan Clancy for highlighting the major problems Twitch has in moderating anti-Semitic content.
What is the controversy about? Dan Saltman is currently one of Twitch’s biggest critics: He criticizes Twitch primarily for allowing streamers like Hasan “HasanAbi” Piker too much leeway and for moderating in a biased manner.
Saltman has repeatedly criticized Twitch and its CEO Dan Clancy on the platform X. He accuses Twitch of acting anti-Semitically by letting Israel-critical streamers like HasanAbi pass through any statements, but banning people like Asmongold when they make negative remarks about Palestinians.
It was in the air that the prominent Twitch streamer Asmongold wanted to invite Saltman onto his stream to expose how allegedly unfair and biased Twitch’s moderation is. Saltman himself has a limited reach on Twitch, with only about 25,000 followers, and claims he doesn’t stream at all (via sullygnome).
According to Saltman’s logic, he has now been permanently banned to prevent this appearance with Asmongold.
Asmongold and the streamer HasanAbi are at the center of the conflict regarding moderation on Twitch:
Twitch permanently bans Saltman
What was he banned for? Officially, Saltman was banned by Twitch for extreme harassment.
However, Twitch cannot specify a concrete reason and apparently uses a placeholder. It is claimed that Saltman was banned for a clip from 2001 – that is years before the platform even existed.
Twitch has previously banned streamers for behavior that occurred outside of Twitch. However, this is not common practice.
Saltman rants about the “racist” team at Twitch
This is what Saltman says: He rants that Dan Clancy banned him after he prepared to have his account deleted. Clancy wants to prevent him from talking to other creators (likely with Asmongold).
Saltman says: He has not streamed on Twitch and does not want to. The ban now is just a reaction to his crusade against the “racist Trust and Safety” team at Twitch (via X).
Is there a statement from Twitch? Twitch’s last statement came on November 1. Dan Clancy had denied the idea that Twitch is biased.
They are against harassment of any kind, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia (via blog.twitch).
The situation on Twitch is escalating
Why is it escalating now? The situation has been consistently escalating for weeks – the topic “Gaza War and how Twitch moderates controversial statements about it” has been the number one sensitive topic for weeks.
Fox News has published a critical article about HasanAbi: The streamer calls for a new 9/11. Hasan Piker subsequently praised Twitch’s moderation explicitly. It is really great (via sportskeeda). Piker said he feels misrepresented, as when short clips are taken from 8-hour streams, these statements do not reflect his opinion and stance.
Meanwhile, people like Saltman or Asmongold are working to inform the advertising industry that moderation on Twitch is allegedly biased, in order to increase pressure on the platform: More and more streamers are no longer making money on Twitch – an expert explains why the platform is in crisis
