Twitch bans a number of Arab streamers after being pressured by a pro-Israel group over a TwitchCon panel that took place ten months ago

Twitch was embroiled in controversy last week over what streamers were allowed to say and how they could act regarding the ongoing conflict between Israel & Palestine. It was brought to light by a racist anti Palestinian rant made by popular streamer Asmongold. He was suspended for 14 days and had to apologize.

Twitch has now banned a group Middle Eastern streamers, for "hateful behavior," for one month per person. This is even longer than Asmongold's ban. The bans are not entirely clear but they seem to be based on a list of streamers ranked from "Arab" up to "loves Sabra", a brand of hummus owned by both Israelis and Americans.

The ranking was part a TwitchCon Panel hosted by Twitch Partner Frogan on the 21st of September, who said that it was all about 'who has a Habibi pass' (habibi in Arabic means'my love'). Ethan Klein, a streamer for Israel and advocate of Israel, picked up on this and posted a video entitled "Twitch has a major problem" claiming that the panel was "kinda Arab bad, Jew good" and the Sabra reference was anti-Israeli, because the brand is often used in pro-Palestinian campaigns. Klein then produced an inverted version of the tier list (which disappears after 24 hours) that now includes "Jews living in Israel" with "loves Sabra".

The Anti-Defamation League's involvement, however, appears to have been the real game-changer. This is a major American non-profit organization that campaigns against racism and promotes Zionism, as a movement promoting "self-determination for the Jewish people and statehood in their ancestral homeland." Yesterday, the ADL confirmed that it had pressed Twitch into action regarding the month-old streaming and accused Frogan spreading "antisemitic hatred." The full statement is:

ADL spoke to Twitch staff after becoming aware of several worrying incidents on social media and/or involving Twitch streams in the last week. Twitch made the right decision by suspending the streamer Frogan after she abused her platform and Twitchcon to spread antisemitic hatred during this time of intense anxiety for the Jewish Community.

It continues to say that Twitch needs to improve by taking "meaningful actions" and ends with the statement that it will "continue holding them accountable when they fail to meet their responsibility."

Frogan, along with the other panelists, were then banned for 30 consecutive days for "hateful behavior."

The streamers who were part of the panel are not pleased about this. Frogan said after the ban, "[The claim] is that we] and our guest did a list where 'good=Arab' and 'Jew=bad' was not what happened. "Our tier was 'who had habibi pass', which is a meme list we did with various creators [...] We are all Arabs of different religious backgrounds: Raff is Jewish, I am Muslim and Capri is Christian. Sabra hummus, which is the standard for hummus in America, is objectively the worst.

Twitch has entered a controversy that goes beyond the Sabra hummus. A prominent critic created a mock-up image to make Frogan look worse, and a large non-profit is demanding a ban. Frogan posted the Twitch ban notice for "targeted hatredful conduct" and noted that she received 30 days, while Asmongold was suspended for 14 days because of his anti-Palestinian rant. TwitchCon's stream has also been removed from the platform.

It's notable that the ban was applied retrospectively and to a TwitchCon streaming that the platform knew about. It also seems to have been imposed by an outside rights organization. This is not uncommon, but it seems that Twitch was forced to moderate something they initially deemed fine.

It feels like Twitch created a huge problem for itself by pursuing content such as this: Because it is almost impossible to talk about Israel or Palestine and not anger someone. Twitch's decision to ban the topic is at least clear. If it wants to get into the weeds about streamer tiers and hummus it will need to hire a lot more moderators.