The Twitch streaming platform, at any given moment, is being watched by more people than any TV news network. Annually, 21.4 billion hours of content are consumed on Twitch. And this includes the antisemitism the platform is increasingly broadcasting into viewers’ heads.
If you’re older than a millennial, you probably haven’t heard of Twitch, now owned by Amazon. Three quarters of users are under 35. Twitch began in 2011 as a platform primarily for streaming games and today over 7 million people create Twitch content — ranging from gaming to comedy to, increasingly, videos that are anti-Jewish and pro-terror.
It’s a powerful and seemingly dangerous platform for reaching young minds.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists and thousands of Gazans invaded Israel, conducting the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Less than a week later, while Israelis were still trying to identify the charred remains of innocents burned alive, the Twitch streaming platform appeared to side with . . . the terrorists. Changes to Twitch coding made it almost impossible for Israelis to become members of the platform.
This was first brought to light last May by an Israeli streamer named “Force,” who posted on X, “I’ve discovered around a month ago that A LOT of my longtime viewers have not been able to sign up to Twitch because they’re located in Israel, which is insane.”
Despite public outcry, Twitch took no action.
About a week ago, a subreddit thread noticed the sign-up snafus, too. Then it snowballed. One user posted, “Israeli here!, just checked and indeed found themselves banned from creating new accounts.”
Twitch denied trying to prevent users in Israel from joining the platform post-Oct. 7. Instead, they posted a claim on X that sign-ups from Israel via email were suspended following the Hamas attack to prevent violent content from being broadcast. Twitch claimed that sign-ups via mobile phone devices were still permitted.
But according to a report from Ynet, Israel’s largest media outlet, Israelis were reportedly blocked when trying to register via both email and mobile devices as of Oct. 20 — more than a year after the Hamas massacre. Threads on Reddit by Twitch users support Ynet’s claims. Yet only last month did Twitch finally address and correct the sign-up blocks after strong public outrage.
Worse yet is who and what Twitch does allow on its platform. As another Redditer posted, “They literally have streamers celebrating terrorism against Jews.”
One such streamer is Hasan Piker, who my organization StopAntisemitism named our Antisemite of the Week in April — and who in 2019 said that “America deserved 9/11, dude. F–k it, I’m saying it.”
More recently, Piker declared there was no evidence of mass rape or murder by Hamas last October. Even though the terror group live-streamed their gory pillaging of Israel, Piker-hosted streams where he denied or dismissed Hamas sexual violence, going as far as to say: “It doesn’t matter if f–king rapes happened on October 7th.”
This type of content violates Twitch’s community guidelines, which state, “Twitch does not allow content that depicts, glorifies, encourages, or supports terrorism, or violent extremist actors or acts.”
While Piker faced a temporary suspension in 2021 for using the word “cracker” to describe white people, he reportedly earns millions annually from the platform. He is so beloved by Twitch, that CEO Dan Clancy and Twitch employees celebrated the streamer’s birthday in July by singing to him live. Despite this outrage, Twitch has ignored the over 7,000 complaints our organization has sent to them about Piker’s behavior.
It’s not just Twitch users who traffic in hate, employees do too. The company’s Trust & Safety team, for instance, includes Fadzai Madzingira, who was suspended from a job at Ofcom, the UK’s independent communications regulator, due to her alleged anti-Israel bias. On Oct. 16, 2023, when Israel had yet to respond to the massacre, Madzingira allegedly accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing and genocide of Palestinians” in an Instagram post; yet Twitch thought her worthy of employment.
What’s the answer to all of this? CEO Daniel Clancy must account for Twitch’s treatment of Israeli users and step down. The way he runs Twitch — with its unethical boycott of Israel and the ongoing antisemitic, pro-terror voices that thrive there — is deeply disturbing.
According to a Twitch spokesperson responding to questions posed by the Post: “there’s no place on Twitch for hatred or harassment of any kind, including antisemitism and Islamophobia. Twitch is, and will always be, about belonging – we have clear Community Guidelines that prohibit these harms, and our enforcement processes ensure we apply these policies swiftly, objectively, and consistently to protect all members of our community. We take that responsibility seriously, and are constantly working to improve upon and evolve our approach to safety.”
Nonetheless, if Twitch won’t act responsibly, Amazon should step in. We’re not optimistic.
Amazon employee Alexander “Sasha” Troufanov has been held hostage in Gaza for over a year and there is zero evidence the tech giant has done anything to get him released.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, the California attorney general and legislature should investigate Twitch’s practices, including their Israel boycott. The platform is based in California where strong anti-BDS laws prohibit the state from doing business with companies with policies “against . . . the nation and people of Israel.” Newsom could have real impact here; the Golden State almost certainly has contracts with Amazon Web Services.
Finally, Twitch’s Trust & Safety team must be overhauled. Oversight and management must be located domestically, not, for example, in Egypt where many staffers have resided, according to an internal whistleblower, and where a Pew poll found 95% of residents express negative views towards Jews. Employment of managers with deep-seated bias like Madzingira should be reconsidered.
There must be consequences for Twitch’s outrageous anti-Israel actions and promulgation of antisemitism. American society cannot flourish when our young generation is being streamed to hate.
Liora Rez is the Founder and Executive Director of StopAntisemitism.
