Kick co-founder says majority of “vile” streamers are on Twitch and YouTube

Dylan Horetski
Kick.com logo on gaming setup

Kick co-founder Bijan Tehrani says the majority of “vile” streamers are on Twitch and YouTube, and claims the narrative that Kick streamers are bad is not fair or constructive.

Since its launch in 2023, Kick has become one of the strongest platforms to ever try to compete with Twitch. They’ve brought major names like xQc and Amouranth over from Twitch, but there’s been a fair share of controversy with some smaller creators.

Most recently, YouTuber and former Kick streamer Jack Doherty was permanently banned from the platform after wrecking his McLaren supercar during an IRL stream where he was using his phone and driving at the same time.

On Monday, November 4, X user Lowco shared a list of people banned from the platform, calling out the site for attracting “vile people doing the sh*ttiest things.”

“When you market your platform as having less rules and restrictions than Twitch and realize that only attracts the most vile people doing the sh*ttiest things,” she said.

Kick co-founder Bijan Tehrani quickly responded, mentioning the majority of the listed “vile” streamers are still on Twitch and YouTube.

“Majority of those ‘vile’ streamers are still on Twitch and YT. There’s so much noise right now that gets amplified for clicks, but Kick is undoubtedly maturing every day. It takes time to build process and calibrate to the right level of moderation while still remaining fair and transparent but we have made a lot of progress,” he said before hitting out at the narrative that all Kick streamers are bad.

“We are listening and want to do what’s best for our community as a whole but this ‘kick streamer’ narrative everyone is farming is not a fair or constructive one.”

Kick has continued to improve the platform throughout 2024, including efforts to fight against viewbotting on the site.

Everything they are doing seems to be working as well, as Kick grew in viewers by over 33% during the month of October.