#TwitchOverParty has started to trend after the platform’s former top streamer Ninja has said that porn was recommended to his viewers. Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, who now streams exclusively on Microsoft’s Mixer, posted a video in which he complained about Twitch’s behavior in the wake of him leaving the site. This reportedly included Twitch accidentally recommending porn to those looking at Ninja’s channel, with the site’s Fortnite sub-category erroneously hosting a channel playing adult material.
Since Ninja left Twitch, the platform has used his channel to recommend other streams. “The Ninja you’re looking for is in another castle. Check out these popular live channels,” a message from Twitch read alongside a selection of other Fortnite streams. However, as this list of livestreams wasn’t manually curated, one channel hosted porn in the Fortnite sub-category and ended up appearing as the top recommendation on his offline channel as a result.
“I’ve been streaming for eight years, to build my brand and to build my channel, 14-and-a-half million followers, and they were still using my channel to promote other streamers,” Ninja said in a Twitter video. “Well now, there was a porn account that was number one being recommended on my channel, and I have no say in any of this stuff. So this is the line, this is the final straw, we’re trying to get the whole channel taken down to begin with, or at least not promote other streamers and other channels on my brand on my friggin’ profile.”
The video can be viewed below:
Disgusted and so sorry. pic.twitter.com/gnUY5Kp52E
— Ninja (@Ninja) August 11, 2019
In response to the video, Twitch CEO Emmett Shear said that the porn displayed on his offline channel “grossly violates” the site’s terms of service. He added that Twitch had suspended these recommendations on Ninja’s channel, though implied that they would return in the future:
2/ This helps all streamers as it creates new community connections. However, the lewd content that appeared on the @ninja offline channel page grossly violates our terms of service, and we’ve permanently suspended the account in question.
— Emmett Shear (@eshear) August 11, 2019
4/ On a more personal note, I apologize want to apologize directly to @ninja that this happened. It wasn’t our intent, but it should not have happened. No excuses.
— Emmett Shear (@eshear) August 11, 2019
In response to this incident, #TwitchOverParty swiftly started trending on social media, with some using it to promote making the switch to Mixer:
#TwitchOverParty true though pic.twitter.com/7pXEywoIKR
— .00223 | arak💯 (@arak_r6) August 11, 2019
It makes sense that Twitch wouldn’t want to sit on Ninja’s 14.7 million channel followers without using his now-offline channel for some gain. However, if this is a tactic Twitch plans to use with multiple channels, it needs to ensure that recommendations made on offline channels are appropriate and will not present similar unfortunate issues.
