The streamer Alinity recently got into trouble for throwing a cat live during a stream. The situation has escalated, and even a director at Twitch is calling for her ban.
What happened? The streamer Natalia “Alinity” Mogollon is facing accusations of animal cruelty. The reason was that she grabbed her cat Milo, who jumped on her keyboard while she was streaming Apex Legends, and carelessly threw him behind her. The streamer showed no further concern for the animal’s condition and continued the stream.
The scene with the cat throw disturbed many viewers, and quickly more cases of questionable behavior by Alinity towards her pets were found:
- A year earlier, she drank vodka and let the cat lick it off her lips
- Another video shows Alinity kicking a dog live on stream because it was bothering the cat
Streamer criticized harshly
How Alinity was confronted: Public sentiment quickly heated up on social media, and people demanded harsh penalties for Alinity. They suggested taking her animals away and a petition with over 27,000 signatures (as of 24.07.2019) even called for her permanent ban from the streaming platform Twitch.
How Twitch reacted: While there has been no official statement from Twitch, Marcus “djWHEAT” Graham commented on the matter. He is the Director of Creative Development at Twitch and spoke out via Twitter.
He himself is a cat owner and is quite upset about the situation. He further explained:
“If it were up to me …
- I would ban her for at least 30 days
- I would call for a stream on animal cruelty and charity actions for animals
- I would enforce a 90-day probation period with a zero-tolerance policy (You mess up = ban) and audits”
However, djWHEAT is not part of the moderation team and has no official banning rights on Twitch. His statements are merely hypothetical.
These are the consequences
What has really happened so far? While there is still a heated discussion online about Alinity and her behavior, the streamer has spoken out herself.
After initially apologizing for the action with the cat throw and the vodka, she later stated that nothing would happen to her:
“Don’t worry, guys, I’m fine! I spoke with someone at Twitch today and I won’t be banned. But the people who are harassing me could get bans.”
However, it is still unconfirmed whether this is true and whether people harassing Alinity with the cat incident could actually receive a Twitch ban.
