Twitch is suing anonymous streamers who posted pornography, gore, and copyrighted material to the platform last month. As noted by Bloomberg, the case was filed in California last week.
In late May, viewers noticed a flurry activity on the streaming platform’s Artifact tab. Due to the lack of popularity of Valve’s card game, the section was largely empty, leading to a series of streams that violated Twitch’s terms of service. Those included streams of feature films, pornographic videos, and extremely violent content including footage of the Christchurch massacre in New Zealand. These streams were swiftly banned, only to be replaced soon after thanks to what Twitch claims were bot-driven accounts.
Twitch is still unaware of the identities of the streamers involved, but refers to them as “John and Jane does 1-100” in the suit. If their identity becomes known, Twitch says that it will ask the court for the streamers to be banned from using the platform, and to pay restitution and damages.
According to Dot Esports, Twitch is suing the streamers for trademark infringement, breach of contract , fraud, and unlawful use of the platform.
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In an attempt to curb the practice, which attracted a lot of attention in late May, Twitch prevented new streamers from broadcasting until a few days after their initial registration. The Artifact tab has since returned to normal, with a total viewer count of eight at time of writing.