When you buy from our articles through links, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.

Twitch has changed its hateful conduct policy to ban the use of the term “Zionist” to attack or demean individuals or groups.

“As part of our Hateful Conduct policy, we prohibit the use of terms that are not themselves harmful or offensive, but in certain contexts could be used as a libel or to denigrate others,” Twitch said. wrote. “In keeping with that approach, as of today it is against our rules to use the term ‘Zionist’ to attack or demean another individual or group of people based on their background or religious beliefs.”

However, using the term in its political context – Zionism is, simply put, a modern political movement advocating an explicitly Jewish Israeli state – will not violate the rules, even if applied critically. Twitchs community guidelines now specify, for example, that calling someone a “Zionist (animal)” is prohibited, but saying “Zionist settlers continue to invade Palestinian borders” is allowed.

“Our goal is not to suppress conversations or criticism of any institution or ideology, but to prevent coded hatred against individuals and groups of people,” Twitch wrote.

The Anti-Defamation League, which put pressure on Twitch banning several Arab streamers in October, a month-old TwitchCon panel also took credit for this change.

“We are pleased that Twitch has acted on our recommendation to make this change,” the ADL further wrote X. “However, the policy is only as strong as the enforcement, and we will be vigilant and appropriately skeptical of Twitch’s enforcement of this new policy.”

The ADL’s position on this issue is that “anti-Zionists are anti-Semitic.” The org says it “strongly believes that you cannot separate the struggle for civil rights from the struggle for the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their ancestral homeland.”

Indeed, enforcement will be a bugbear for Twitch, which will have to separate valid criticism from personal attacks, and then convince people on both sides of the argument that its decision was right.