Twitch announced on Tuesday that it is revamping its suspensions policy, moving away from its previous all-or-nothing penalty system. Previously, a temporary suspension meant losing access to the entire platform, including the ability to chat, watch streams while logged in, and access basic account information. Now, the company is introducing two targeted suspension types: streaming suspensions and chatting suspensions.
The company notes that while its old approach was easier to implement, the new system ensures that restrictions match the specific offense committed. If a user violates Twitch’s Community Guidelines during a livestream, their account will receive a streaming suspension. This means they cannot go live and chat on their own channel is temporarily disabled. However, during a streaming suspension, the user can still watch streams while logged in, chat on other channels, access their user dashboard, and viewers can still watch their existing clips and videos.
Similarly, if someone violates the Community Guidelines in chat, they will receive a chat suspension. They will be prevented from participating in chats on other streams, but they can still stream their own content, watch other streamers, and chat in their own channel.
For higher severity violations, which present a greater risk to the community, Twitch will issue both chatting and streaming suspensions simultaneously to prevent further harm. As is the case currently, those who commit the most serious violations will receive an indefinite suspension and lose all access to Twitch. The company states there is no place for serious violations on its platform.
Twitch is not changing the length of temporary suspensions. Both streaming and chatting suspensions will last anywhere from 24 hours to 30 days. With each new violation, the length of the suspension will increase, and accumulating multiple temporary suspensions can still lead to an indefinite suspension from Twitch.
Twitch determines the severity of a violation by considering the extent of harm it causes or has the potential to cause. Harm is defined as any action leading to physical, emotional, social, or financial damage to a user or to Twitch. The company is working on developing additional suspension types to roll out in future updates.