WASHINGTON — Twitch, a popular video streaming service for online gaming, has temporarily suspended President Donald Trump's campaign channel for comments that violated the company's hateful conduct policies.
"Hateful conduct is not allowed on Twitch. 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," a spokesperson said in a statement.
Twitch cited two video streams on Trump's channel that violated its policies.
The first was Trump's announcement in 2015 that he was running for president, which Twitch said had been recently rebroadcast.
In that video, Trump said, "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.”
The second video Twitch cited was remarks Trump made recently at his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
In that video, Trump said "Hey, it’s 1:00 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.”
According to Twitch's rules, hateful conduct is considered "any content or activity that promotes, encourages, or facilitates discrimination, denigration, objectification, harassment, or violence based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability or serious medical condition or veteran status, and is prohibited. Any hateful conduct is considered a zero-tolerance violation."
The company noted that when the president's channel was started in Fall 2019, Twitch said even politicians have to follow its community guidelines and there would be no "exceptions for political or newsworthy content."
Twitch is owned by Amazon, which bought the site in 2014, and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and the company have been frequent targets of the president's criticism.
Facebook recently announced that it plans to crackdown on all rule-breaking posts - including those from Trump. CEO Mark Zuckerberg had previously refused to take action against Trump posts suggesting that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud. Twitter, by contrast, slapped a “get the facts” label on them.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.