Streaming platform Twitch has suspended the account of a user who was distributing illegal gambling advertisements during his broadcasts. The suspension was due to a request from viewers through a specialized monitoring tool.
Streaming platform Twitch has suspended the account of a user who was distributing illegal gambling advertisements during his broadcasts. The suspension was due to a request from viewers through a specialized monitoring tool.
This case was reported by representatives of the PlayCity agency. The specialists received information about the broadcasts with violations through an online complaint form that operates on the project's website.
After receiving the request, the agency team checked the video content on the specified channel. Having confirmed the fact of violation of the platform rules and legislation on gambling advertising, they forwarded the materials to the Twitch administration for consideration. The service's reaction was prompt - within a week of the request, the streamer's account was blocked.
PlayCity notes that this case is the result of their systematic work to clean digital platforms of illegal content. The team has currently established direct mechanisms for interaction with the largest technology corporations, including Meta, Twitch, YouTube, Google, and Viber. This allows for quick and effective transmission of information about violators and blocking of illegal advertising.
It is worth noting that these are not the first steps of the platform in the fight against gambling. Back in October 2022, Twitch introduced a partial ban on streams of gambling games, including slots, roulette and dice games. The restrictions affected sites without licenses in the US or other safe jurisdictions (for example, the well-known crypto casinos Stake.com, Rollbit, Duelbits and Roobet). The platform left only sports betting, fantasy sports and poker allowed.
The global decision in 2022 was the result of massive community protests. At that time, top streamers threatened to go on strike because casino streams were harming young audiences and tarnishing the platform’s reputation. At that time, slots broadcasts were among the top ten most popular categories on Twitch, even ahead of Minecraft, and some content creators admitted to receiving over $1 million a month from casinos.
Earlier, PlayCity CEO Gennady Novikov said that platforms are not legally obliged to respond to the regulator's requests. According to him, the platform's response takes a day, sometimes several weeks.
