Video-streaming service Twitch has banned President Trump, one of the tech industry’s most aggressive crackdowns yet on the president.
The Amazon-owned Twitch cited “hateful conduct” and booted Mr. Trump for broadcasts of his campaign events, particularly his 2015 campaign launch and his June 20 rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
“Hateful conduct is not allowed on Twitch,” a Twitch representative said of the decision to temporarily ban Mr. Trump. “In line with our policies, President Trump’s channel has been issued a temporary suspension from Twitch for comments made on stream and the offending content has been removed.”
Twitch said it told the president’s campaign team when it signed up last year that Twitch would not make exceptions for political or newsworthy content that violates its policies and that Mr. Trump would need to adhere to its community guidelines and terms of service.
Twitch’s actions come amid a slew of new enforcement by tech companies aimed at Mr. Trump and his campaign.
Twitter has restricted the visibility of several of Mr. Trump’s tweets, Facebook took down select Trump campaign ads for violating hate speech policies, and Snapchat removed Mr. Trump from its Discover feature, although it maintained his account and allowed the president to continue posting.
The Trump campaign was relatively noncombative in its reaction to Twitch’s ban.
In the past, Mr. Trump has blasted Twitter’s for fact-checking his tweets and labeling them as “abusive.” The Trump campaign railed against Facebook for deleting its posts.
This time, Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh responded to Twitch’s deplatforming in a statement directing the president’s fans to engage directly with the campaign.
“To hear directly from the president, people should download the Trump app and text ’Trump’ to 88022,” Mr. Murtaugh said.
Twitch said the following comments from Mr. Trump violated its zero-tolerance policy for hateful conduct:
“Hey, it’s one o’clock in the morning and a very tough, I’ve used the word on occasion, ’hombre,’ a very tough hombre is breaking into the window of a young woman whose husband is away as a traveling salesman or whatever he may do,” Mr. Trump said. “And you call 9-1-1 and they say, ’I’m sorry, this number’s no longer working.’ By the way, you have many cases like that, many, many, many. Whether it’s a young woman, an old woman, a young man or an old man, and you’re sleeping.”
Twitch also objected to Mr. Trump’s comments about Mexican immigrants during his 2015 campaign launch at Trump Tower in New York, during which he labeled some as bringing drugs and crime to the country and being “rapists,” while saying he assumed other Mexican immigrants were “good people.”
The comments were shown again on Twitch’s platform and have since been removed.
Twitch said the comments fall under its zero-tolerance policy, which is defined as, “Hateful conduct is any content or activity that promotes, encourages, or facilitates discrimination, denigration, objectification, harassment, or violence based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability or serious medical condition or veteran status, and is prohibited.”
Twitch did not say if there is any time frame or remedy necessary for Mr. Trump to have his account restored.
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.
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