Twitch accused of double standards for allowing sexist stream titles against men

Twitch is being accused of double standards after streamers discovered that the platform allows “I hate men” stream titles while banning “I hate women.”

(Update: April 22 at 11am EST)

Twitch has since made updates to both “I hate women” and “I hate men” stream titles. The change came following accusations of discrimination against Twitch for banning one, but not the other.

In a statement to Dexerto, a Twitch spokesperson cited limitations with machine learning as the culprit for allowing one and not the other.

Both phrases should now be flagged and are prohibited by the site’s Hateful Conduct and Harassment Policy.

Original story below:

Amazon-owned Twitch is the world’s top streaming site, but often finds itself in controversy. From DMCA issues, mysterious indefinite bans, and waves of hate raids, the platform is no stranger to drama.

In recent years, Twitch has made an effort to decrease harassment, enforced strict policies about what its content creators can say on and off the site, and has implemented filters to combat abuse.

However, it seems that in an effort to prevent hate speech, the site is being accused of sexism for censoring negative comments about women while allowing the same phrase about men.

Twitch bans “I hate women” stream title, allows “I hate men”

On April 20, Twitch streamer and VTuber ‘shirahiko’ posted two screenshots to Twitter exposing the platform for allowing “I hate men” as a stream title while disallowing “I hate women.”

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“This title may conflict with Twitch’s moderation policy,” the text reads when a user tries to make “I hate women” their stream title. Dexerto was able to replicate this and verify the legitimacy of the screenshots.

According to shirahiko, they only tried to make their channel that to, “mock the fact that people are blowing things out of proportion again by saying ‘all men are bad’ in the Vtuber community.”

Viewers accuse Twitch of “discrimination”

That didn’t stop the post from going viral with many accusing Twitch of sexism and allowing hatred towards males.

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“Wait that doesn’t sound fair, you should be able to hate everyone equally regardless of gender,” one user wrote.

“Jokes aside, this is genuinely sad,” another commented, prompting another to respond, “It’s not only sad, it’s plain discrimination.”

It’s unclear if Twitch has any plans to comment on why “I hate men” is an approved broadcast name or adjust its approved stream titles, but many are demanding answers.

Dexerto has reached out to Twitch for comment.