Donald Trump unbanned on Twitch after three years

Donald Trump has been unbanned on Twitch almost three and a half years after he was suspended from the Amazon-owned platform.

On January 6, 2021, a large crowd protested around and inside the United States capital building in response to the results of the 2020 Presidential Election. These protests resulted in five deaths.

Donald Trump, the Republican candidate in that election, was accused of inciting the protest. As a result, platforms like Twitch and Twitter removed the politician’s accounts from the websites just weeks later.

On July 19, 2024, Twitch unbanned Donald Trump’s account after three years, five months, and four weeks.

Journalist Rod ‘Slasher‘ Breslau received a comment from Twitch regarding the unban, which cited his involvement in the 2024 election as the reason for his account being unsuspended.

“We reinstated former President Trump’s channel. We believe there is value in hearing from Presidential nominees directly, when possible. Trump is now the official Republican nominee for US president,” they said.

YouTube: CNN

According to Twitchtracker, Donald Trump’s Twitch account has over 150,000 followers and was last live on January 4, 2021. It will take time before the channel reflects his full follower count, however, as it currently shows just 222 followers.

In November 2022, just a month after Elon Musk purchased Twitter for $44B dollars, the tech mogul removed Trump’s ban from the platform.

Musk reinstated Trump’s account after posting a poll on his account asking what users of the website thought. According to CNN, 15 million people voted with 51.2% of them being in favor of his account being reinstated.

Since the unban, he has only posted once, that being a photo of his mugshot with a link to his website. The former president has opted to use Truth Social as the primary social media platform for his thoughts.

Trump wasn’t the only person to be unbanned by Elon Musk, either. On November 18, 2024, influencer Andrew Tate was unbanned from Twitter, now called X after having previously been suspended in 2017 for hate speech.