Under pressure from pro-Israel group, Twitch bans several Arab streamers over a month-old TwitchCon panel

Twitch Nvidia NVENC encoding
(Image credit: Twitch)

In the last week Twitch has found itself embroiled in controversy over what streamers are allowed to say and do about the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine. The incident that brought it to prominence was a racist anti-Palestinian rant by popular streamer Asmongold, which saw him receive a 14-day suspension as well as admit he was out of order and apologise.

Now Twitch has banned a group of Middle Eastern streamers for "hateful conduct," and for one month each, even longer than Asmongold. The reason for the bans isn't entirely clear, but it apparently centres around a tier list ranking streamers from "Arab" to "loves Sabra", an American and Israeli-owned hummus brand.

The ranking was part of a TwitchCon panel hosted by Twitch partner Frogan on September 21, who said it was all about "who has a habibi pass" (habibi is Arabic for "my love"). This was subsequently picked up by Ethan Klein of h3h3Productions, a streamer and advocate for Israel, who posted a video titled "Twitch Has a Major Problem" claiming the panel was "kinda Arab good, Jew bad" and that the Sabra reference is anti-Israeli because this particular brand is often part of pro-Palestinian boycotts. Klein further produced an inverted image of the tier list on Instagram Stories (which disappear after 24 hours) with "loves Sabra" now accompanied by "Jews who live in Israel" to make his point.

Twitch Has a Major Problem - YouTube Twitch Has a Major Problem - YouTube
Watch On

The real game-changer, however, seems to have been the involvement of the Anti-Defamation League, a major American non-profit that campaigns against antisemitism and promotes Zionism as a movement for "self-determination and statehood for the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland." Yesterday the ADL confirmed in a statement it had put pressure on Twitch to act about the month-old stream, and accused Frogan of spreading "antisemitic vitriol." The full statement reads:

"ADL spoke with the Twitch staff today after becoming aware of several concerning incidents on the social media platform and/or involving Twitch streamers in the past week. We appreciate Twitch making the right decision to finally suspend the streamer Frogan for abusing her platform and the Twitchcon event to spread antisemitic vitriol during this time of intense apprehension for the Jewish community."

It goes on to say Twitch must improve with "meaningful action", and ends by saying it will "continue to hold them accountable when they fail in that responsibility."

Frogan and the other panelists were subsequently banned for 30 days for "hateful conduct."

The streamers involved in the panel are not happy about this. "[The claim is we] and our guests did a tier list where 'good=Arab and Jew=bad' which isn’t what happened," said Frogan after the ban. "Our tier list was 'who has habibi pass' which is a meme tier list we did with a variety of creators [...] we are all Arabs from different religious backgrounds: I am Muslim, Capri is Christian, and Raff is Jewish. Sabra hummus is objectively the worst hummus to exist and is the unfortunate standard of hummus in the US."

Leaving the question of Sabra hummus aside, Twitch appears to have waded into a controversy where, whatever you think of Frogan's sense of humor, one prominent critic mocked-up an image to make it look worse than it is, and a major non-profit has steamed in to demand a ban. Frogan later posted the ban notice from Twitch for "targeted hateful conduct", while noting that she's received 30 days while Asmongold's anti-Palestinian rant (which was much more explicit) landed him a 14 day suspension. The TwitchCon stream has now also been deleted from the platform.

Whether the ban is justified or not, it is notable that it's been applied retrospectively to a TwitchCon stream that the platform was clearly aware of, and seems to have come about thanks to pressure from an outside rights organisation. The latter is not unusual, of course, but it does seem like Twitch being forced to belatedly moderate something that the platform initially judged as fine.

By going after content like this, it feels Twitch has just created a massive problem for itself: Because it's almost impossible to say anything about Israel or Palestine without angering someone, somewhere. If Twitch just thinks the topic shouldn't ever be allowed on the platform, that's at least a clear decision. But if it's going to start getting into the weeds over streamer tier lists and hummus, it's going to need a whole lot more moderators.

TOPICS
Rich Stanton
Senior Editor

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."

Read more
HasanAbi
Twitch streamer Hasan Piker suspended after saying Republicans would 'kill Rick Scott' if they really cared about Medicare fraud
A phone showing the premium subscription menu in the Twitter/X mobile app. The screen reads, "Premium subscribers with a verified phone number will get a blue tick once approved." The X logo is visible behind.
The biggest PC gaming subreddit has blacklisted X for being 'hateful' and 'toxic', citing Elon Musk's 'distasteful' behavior
Amir Satvat accepting his award at the 2024 Game Awards.
Amir Satvat says he's received 'countless' hateful messages after being honored at The Game Awards for helping laid-off devs: 'This can happen to you too when you sacrifice over 2,000 hours of your time to help the industry'
Alan Wake, a writer in a snazzy black suit, gives his all during The Herald of Darkness music video from Alan Wake 2.
The biggest gaming controversies of 2024
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 screenshot - swordfight with man in armor
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 forum rules that banned racism, homophobia, and neo-Nazism walked back by the publisher, which now just asks everyone to please be nice
A team of marines walk down a street in a Middle Eastern setting in Operation: Harsh Doorstop.
Indie FPS developer targets content creators who take undisclosed payments from rival developers and then dunk on his game: 'You and I will have legal problems'
Latest in Gaming Industry
A masked man with an axe in the woods
Rebellion CEO seems kind of awed by major studios making massive videogames: 'How do you organize a game that has 2,000 people working on it?'
A computer screen with program code warning of a detected malware script program. 3d illustration
Coder faces 10 years' jailtime for creating a 'kill switch' that screwed-up his employers' systems when he was laid off
Atomfall screenshot
Rebellion CEO puts the studio's recent avoidance of layoffs down to control of scope and cost: 'Sometimes we say, guys, this game's too big'
Judge Dredd promotional image in Warzone
Half-a-dozen 2000AD games were in the works before fizzling out: 'The games you get to see are a tiny representative of the number that get started—sadly'
sniper elite 5 cover
Sniper Elite CEO reckons Swen Vincke is right to snarl at short-sighted publishers: 'You could argue that their business at senior level isn't making games… their business is managing their shareholders' perceptions'
Kasumi and Joker in Persona 5 Royal.
After 31 years in games, Persona director Katsura Hashino just got a 'Newcomer Award' and $5,000 from the Japanese government
Latest in News
A masked man with an axe in the woods
Rebellion CEO seems kind of awed by major studios making massive videogames: 'How do you organize a game that has 2,000 people working on it?'
A young witch watering a smiling mushroom in a magic garden
Here's a roguelite dungeon crawler Steam reviewers call 'a botanical Diablo' and 'like Cult of the Lamb' except you manage a mystical garden
Destiny 2 Rite of the Nine: The Emissary, massive, ominously standing at the edge of a water basin.
Oops! Bungie rolled out Destiny 2's Rite of the Nine event three weeks early, and new loot is already dropping
Chatacabra from Monster Hunter Wilds
The latest Monster Hunter Wilds event quest gives piles of Armor Spheres for hunting a Chatacabra, making this a very bad week to be a frog in the Forbidden Lands
No Rest for the Wicked Steam early access screenshots
No Rest for the Wicked developer Moon Studios is now 'fully independent' after acquiring the rights to the game from Take-Two
A hunter posing with an absurd Blangonga outfit in Monster Hunter Wilds.
Attention, fashion hunters: There's a Monster Hunter Wilds mod to disable all those obnoxious glowing buff effects that distract from your fits