Does Twitch have an antisemitism problem?

Earlier this month, the Amazon-owned streaming platform Twitch expressed “deep regret” over a move effectively banning Israelis from signing up to its platform for more than a year.

The Seattle-based tech company, which boasts over 240 million monthly users, blocked new Israeli users from signing up in the wake of October 7, displaying error messages when they attempted to verify their email addresses during account creation.

Twitch defended its initial decision, which it claimed was made to avoid the spread of violent footage from the Hamas attack on Israel on the platform, however, nearly a year later, the company said it “forgot” to remove these restrictions.

Twitch applied this policy to Israel and the West Bank, other conflict-affected countries such as Ukraine, Russia, and Lebanon have not been subject to similar restrictions.

And many users of the service have criticised the platform for its willingness to tolerate anti-Israeli and at times antisemitic content, with no repercussions for the users involved.

Popular streamers on the platform, with millions of followers, have been free to share anti-Jewish screeds, including defending and supporting Hezbollah and the Houthis.

As online pressure mounted for Twitch to tackle anti-Jewish content, several of the platform’s most popular streamers have been banned from the platform.
Sneako, Fresh & Fit, Frogan and Denims have all been suspended after a controversial clip in which creators described Zionists as the lowest form of streamer at the platform’s annual convention, TwitchCon.
In a viral clip, popular anti-Israel streamers ranked others on a scale from “Arab” to “Loves Sabra,” with the Israeli hummus brand representing the lowest rank. Sabra is also a term used to describe Jews born in Israel.

The first streamer placed at the bottom of the rank was Jewish creator Ethan Klein, known as “h3h3” on Twitch, which some interpreted as a ranking system based on “Arab to Jew.”

One panellist added, “I’ll just say it. There should be an even lower category called ‘Zionist,'” which was met with applause from the audience.

Since October 2023, some users of the live streaming platform, which originally focused on video game content but has expanded to include political commentary, have raised concerns about broader issues in Twitch’s content management. Critics argue that the site has platformed anti-Israel commentators who promote terrorism.

Several of the platform’s most prominent political streamers have openly praised or allowed admiration for Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.

One such streamer is Turkish-American Hasan Piker.

Hasan Piker has spread pro-Hezbollah, pro-Houthi commentary to millions of Twitch followers (Photo: Getty Images)

With over 2.7 million followers on Twitch, more than 1.4 million on YouTube and 1.1 million on Instagram, Piker has been characterised by the mainstream media as the “progressive voice of a generation” who could swing the US election with his influence on young voters.

But Piker faced backlash after hosting “Houthi pirate” Rashed Al-Haddad, who has repeatedly shared antisemitic messages and compared interviewing the Yemeni to meeting Anne Frank.

In conversation with a member of the proscribed terror group, Haddad, Piker said anyone who called the Houthi a “terrorist” was a “dumb ass”.

When the streamer asked Haddad about knives, he said, “When you see one of those come out in front of you it is not going back until it has blood on it,” and Piker responded, “that is cool”.

During his live-streamed rants, Piker has praised Hezbollah for being “successful” as a “resistance group” against Israel, denied that rapes occurred on October 7, and justed babies born in parts of Israel are “settler babies”.

Piker’s audience meanwhile has praised Hamas and eulogised late Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, as a “martyr”.

Despite Twitch’s strict Terms of Service, which prohibit support for terrorist organisations and bigotry based on ethnicity, nationality, or sexual orientation, Piker’s comments have gone largely unchecked. The platform has taken minimal action against him, suspending him for just one week over a specific remark.

During the interview with the Houthi rebel Piker joked about “cool” bloody knives (Photo: Twitch)

Twitch also recently reversed its decision to reinstate controversial creator Sneako, who was previously banned for promoting antisemitic content.

Sneako reportedly claimed, “All politicians are controlled by Jews.” His account was restored alongside that of the hosts from the “Fresh & Fit” podcast – both of whom have now been banned again.

Jewish streamer Ethan Klein slammed the company CEO Dan Clancy on Friday for re-platforming the accounts, whom Klein described as “maybe the two most openly antisemitic creators online.”

Another Twitch streamer, Frogan, praised October 7 as a “revolution” and said she hoped US soldiers “got PTSD”. Just months before, Twitch awarded her with its “Legendary Woman of the Year” and she appeared on a panel at TwitchCon. She was suspended from the platform on Monday evening following online backlash.

In contrast, streamer Asmongold was swiftly banned from the platform for his inflammatory remark expressing indifference towards Palestinians with a “genocidal ideology” facing “genocide.”

Amid the mounting concern about the platform’s moderation, social media campaigners StopAntisemitism revealed this week that a senior executive on Twitch’s “trust and safety team is Fadzai Madzingira, formerly of Ofcom, who was forced to resign from her role as Online Safety Director at the UK regulator after she posted anti-Israel social media posts in the week after the Hamas attacks last October.

Addressing the controversy, Twitch said: “We’ve heard concerns about whether our Community Guidelines apply to all content on our service. We continue to enforce our rules as consistently as possible, and are actively reviewing content and taking enforcement action where needed.”

Posting on X/Twitter, a spokesperson for the streaming platform addressed the concerns about Israelis being barred from the platform: “We wanted to address concerns we’ve seen about whether we’re preventing Twitch account sign-ups in some regions.

“When signing up for a Twitch account, you can select an account verification method – email or phone – for added protection. Following the October 7, 2023 attacks, we temporarily disabled sign-ups with email verification in Israel and Palestine. We did this to prevent uploads of graphic material related to the attack and to protect the safety of users.

“Signups were not disabled, and we continued to see sign ups from both regions. Users could choose to sign up with phone verification. We’ve learned that, inadvertently, we did not re-enable email verification sign ups for either region.

“We deeply regret this unacceptable miss, and the confusion it has caused. We’ve fixed the issue, meaning all affected users can sign up with email verification.”

The JC has approached Sneako, Fresh & Fit, Frogan, Denims and Piker for comment.

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