The former professional Overwatch player, Felix ‘xQc’ Lengyel was recently banned for streaming nudity on his Twitch channel. The popular Twitch streamer was playing Strip 4: Classmate Study and somewhat predictably nudity was in the adult-certified title. Although the streamer quickly stopped the content, it was enough for Twitch to enforce a ban, that went largely uncontested by the streamer. However, only a handful of days after the event, Twitch has lifted the ban and xQc is streaming once again.
As a streaming provider, Twitch has set rules and regulations to ensure offensive content does not populate the platform. As a result, there have been plenty of streamers banned from Twitch for a myriad of reasons. In this instance, it seemed that xQc immediately realised he had breached the rules of the platform and then went about speaking to the correct authorities to lift the ban.
After returning to Twitch, xQc explained his actions and where the confusion between his ban and his stream was. The streamer claimed that because of games like Conan: Exile having nudity, he thought the nudity in Strip 4: Classmate Study would be acceptable. However, Conan: Exile is a survival game while Strip 4 is focused on sexualised content. Despite his explanation, the games have very different purposes and there does not seem to be too much dispute from his fans that this was the right decision from Twitch. This appears to be one of the infrequent cases where Twitch and its audience agree on a decision.
It is safe to assume that xQc will be avoiding NSFW Hentai streams for some time. The streamer is on his second strike and in accordance with Twitch rules, another incident could see xQc permanently banned. With every streaming ban comes speculation about content providers moving to other platforms and xQc was immediately linked with Mixer following this incident. However, if xQc breaches the rules of Twitch yet again, he may have no choice but to move on to a new streaming service.
The streamer had streamed a pornographic video last summer and this also caused an outcry on all sides of the argument. Many will be hoping that they can get regular content from xQc once more, and without the dramatic bans that have taken place over the last year. Yet with xQc’s ban tally increasing, it may be best if the streamer sticks to safe for work content if he wants to stay on the platform and retain his audience.
