Twitch, the streaming video service owned by Amazon, temporarily shut down an account for President Donald Trump on Monday over what it called “hateful conduct” in his posts.
The Verge first reported the news and Twitch shared transcripts with GeekWire of comments made in two streams:
- A 2015 Trump campaign rally, recently rebroadcast on Twitch: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we’re getting. And it only makes common sense. It only makes common sense. They’re sending us not the right people.”
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Tulsa, Okla., rally last week: “Hey, it’s 1 o’clock in the morning and a very tough, I’ve used the word on occasion, hombre, a very tough hombre is breaking into the window of a young woman whose husband is away as a traveling salesman or whatever he may do. And you call 911 and they say, “I’m sorry, this number’s no longer working.” By the way, you have many cases like that, many, many, many. Whether it’s a young woman, an old woman, a young man or an old man and you’re sleeping.”
“Hateful conduct is not allowed on Twitch,” A Twitch spokesperson said in a statement. “In line with our policies, President Trump’s channel has been issued a temporary suspension from Twitch for comments made on stream, and the offending content has been removed.”
The suspension comes less than a week after Twitch said in a blog post that it would be taking steps to make the platform a safer space “with more tools to combat harassment and hate.”
The Trump campaign launched its channel last year to stream rallies and other events, according to The Verge. Twitch said at the time that like anyone else on the platform, politicians on Twitch must adhere Terms of Service and Community Guidelines.
“We do not make exceptions for political or newsworthy content, and will take action on content reported to us that violates our rules,” Twitch said.
It was not clear how long Monday’s suspension would last.
Earlier Monday, the social networking site Reddit also moved against hate speech and banned a subreddit called “The_Donald.” The New York Times reported that the community was home to more than 790,000 users who post memes, viral videos and supportive messages about Trump. Reddit said the group “had consistently broken its rules by allowing people to target and harass others with hate speech.”
