Body painter lashes out at Twitch following ‘unfair’ ban

A popular Twitch body painter has hit out at the streaming service over a temporary ban she received for an “insufficiently covered body” on April 11. 

Mizzy is a 22-year-old Twitch personality who lives in British Columbia, Canada. She has been on the platform for a number of years and specializes in body painting – the art of painting a person’s body, often to depict clothing or as part of a cosplay.

As you can imagine, this is a bit of a grey area on Twitch’s terms of use. While “body art” is a listed “exception” to Twitch’s terms of service, it almost always involves the use of the streamer’s body as a blank canvas.

In an attempt to ensure that she didn’t receive any punishment from the Amazon-owned platform, Mizzy started the stream with her chest already painted, believing that by doing this, she would not violate Twitch’s terms of use.

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This didn’t stop the Canadian’s account from being banned, however. Despite following the terms of service to the best of her knowledge, Mizzy’s account received a one day suspension for “streaming or engaging in body-art content featuring a nude or insufficiently covered body”.

“Twitch has banned me!” the artist tweeted. “I don’t care if it’s for a day, it still affects my account. I did nothing wrong.” 

Responses to Mizzy’s ban were mixed. One Twitter user argued that the ban was justified, and that the 22-year-old was “naive” and knew “what kind of content you knowingly were live streaming on a predominantly gaming platform.”

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However, others argued that Mizzy’s stream stuck to Twitch’s guidelines: “That banning was total bullsh*t. Everything was within Twitch’s own guidelines.”

Given the one day length of Mizzy’s ban, she is already back on Twitch. However, a ban stands against a channel even after it has returned and can lead to issues regarding partnership and monetization in the future.

Regardless, Mizzy is back body painting on Twitch, deciding not to let her suspension stop her from creating the content she loves.