When contacted for comment on the allegations, a Twitch spokesperson vehemently denied that any of the platform’s actions were evidence of anti-Semitism and pointed to its community guidelines to protect the spaces for users.

“There is no place on Twitch for hate or harassment of any kind, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia,” the Twitch representative said in a statement. “We take that responsibility seriously and are continually working to improve and evolve our approach to safety.”

As an example of the content Saltman said he shares with potential Twitch advertisers, the creator shared a video of a T-Mobile ad playing before a clip from pro-Palestinian streamer Hasan Piker, which claimed that reports about mass rape committed by Hamas members during the attack had never been confirmed. (Piker did not respond to a request for comment before publication of this article.)

“I’ve tried to do this in a way that gives brands maximum coverage. We privately message the brands, media agencies and DSPs and show them videos of their brands’ ads alongside the most despicable content,” said Saltman, who told Digiday his group had already reached more than 100 advertisers, like those of Kellogg. , Chase and AT&T. These brands, along with 19 others contacted by Digiday, did not return requests for comment. “If the brand confirms to us that they have stopped/paused ads, we simply remove them from our list and do not show that they have stopped advertising.”

Saltman declined to share the names of specific brands that had responded to his posts, nor did he indicate how many had responded. He did not outline his group’s planned approach for brands that did not respond to the campaign.

Saltman and other critics of Twitch also pointed to the content of an official TwitchCon panel on September 21 with livestreamers Fr0gan, Vio, CapriSunnPapi, Raffoulticket and DenimsTV, which they deemed anti-Semitic for ranking streamers on a scale between “Arab” and ‘Arabic’. loves Sabra.” Saltman told Digiday that he also takes issue with Twitch’s approach to content moderation, which he said targets anti-Israel voices due to the lack of sanctions against pro-Palestinian streamers like Piker.

Twitch has also publicly responded to the allegations, both by suspending the streamers involved in the controversial TwitchCon panel and by tweeting a message. statement explaining that the company had disabled account verification in Israel and Palestine “to prevent uploads of graphic materials related to the attack and to protect user safety.” Twitch representatives also denied that the platform’s moderation policies were biased, telling Digiday that the platform’s “enforcement processes ensure that we apply these policies quickly, objectively, and consistently to protect all members of our community.”

Suspending email signups is one of many tactics that online platforms like Twitch sometimes use to block the spread of harmful content. The company’s decision to do this at the start of the Gaza conflict represents an evolution of Twitch’s approach to content moderation, as the platform did not implement this type of policy during the start of other recent and ongoing armed conflicts, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“Following the October 7, 2023 attacks, Twitch suspended the ability to create new accounts via email verification in both Gaza and Israel. We did this to prevent new streamers from creating accounts, with only email verification, that could stream disturbing videos related to the attacks,” the Twitch representative said.

“This action did not completely limit new account creation for customers in these countries, as mobile phone verification was still working and represents approximately half of our new accounts. The suspension was intended as a temporary measure to prevent the uploading of graphic content to protect the safety of our customer community, but was incorrectly extended until we were notified of the error this week. Once we became aware of the issue, it was quickly resolved and new accounts in both Gaza and Israel can now be created and verified via both email and mobile phone.”

With less than a week to go until the US presidential election, most brands are unlikely to make public decisions that could even vaguely be interpreted as a political or ideological statement. So there is no public evidence to suggest that brands have changed their approach to Twitch due to the recent accusations of anti-Semitism against the platform.

“I can’t say whether we’re pulling or not; What I can say is that our advertising is absolutely intended to increase consumer awareness of our products,” said Lloryn Love-Carter, senior manager of corporate communications at Nissan, one of the brands contacted by the Saltman group. “That’s our goal – not to make political commentary.”

Despite the scandal, advertisers are becoming wiser about the many ways they can reach the online gaming community, and are increasingly focusing their ad spend on forms of inventory other than Twitch pre-roll and interstitial ads. This is one of the reasons why Twitch itself has started investing in alternative advertising methods, such as an official Fortnite Creative world. Regardless of the impact of Saltman’s campaign, his decision to go after the platform’s advertising efforts indicates that online creators currently view advertising as one of the platform’s potential weaknesses.

This story has been updated to reflect Twitch’s response to claims of fashion bias.