Keffals Claims She Received A Twitch Ban For Openly Discussing Hate She Received Online

Prominent trans streamer Keffals has been banned from Twitch for what she describes as openly discussing the harassment she's faced on the platform, which has subsequently sparked backlash against the streaming site from many online.

twitch banned one of their biggest transgender streamers from their website for openly talking about the abuse they receive. i do not understand how they managed to fuck up so badly.

— keffals (@keffals) July 21, 2022

On July 18th, Keffals prepped a livestream where she was going to discuss the harassment she'd received from Steven “Destiny” Bonnell. In March, Keffals reported Destiny for transphobic comments in a debate about the Lia Thomas swimming controversy and encouraged her followers to do the same. Destiny was banned from Twitch days later.

Keffals has accused Destiny of directing his followers and Kiwi Farms frequenters to harass her. She believes she was banned because the thumbnail for her video showed examples of slurs she had been called and that Destiny encouraged his followers to mass report her for violating Twitch's policies against hate speech. She backed up her allegation with screenshots of Destiny's chatlogs that she'd received.

just got sent the chatlogs, destiny told his community to mass report my twitch account pic.twitter.com/VxsGgvNydq

— keffals (@keffals) July 19, 2022

Keffals was banned before her stream began. Her appeal was then rejected and she now faces a 28-day ban from the platform. She now plans to stream on YouTube in the wake of the controversy.

Her ban once again led to criticism of Twitch and its content violation protocol, as many felt Keffals had not committed an offense that warranted the punishment.

This is unfortunately how Twitch treats anyone who speaks out against the mistreatment of creators, especially those from marginalized communities, by sanctioning them if they show the abuse they receive. https://t.co/R8QaDE5vQ9

— Mike from PA (@Mike_from_PA) July 21, 2022

Day number 1206294 of @Twitch moderation being a complete fucking joke https://t.co/nXNn8LBYt2

— Taylor K (@SpaceW_) July 21, 2022

Remember when @Twitch celebrated diversity last month? Sadly June is over so they don't care anymore. https://t.co/wdNyKqNkWN pic.twitter.com/TQJmu15l6b

— syaoran junino (@SyaoranSama) July 21, 2022

Keffals' ban adds to a long list of controversial bans on Twitch's part that has left many creators confused about its rules.

In April, Twitch banned, unbanned, then re-banned trans streamer Narcissa Wright after she tweeted she was going to "shoot up" Twitch HQ. Late last year, Hasanabi was banned for saying "cracker."