Twitch has reportedly been banning sign ups from Israel and Palestine for over a year

gamesindustry.biz:

Twitch has reportedly been banning new accounts from Israel and Palestine on the platform since October 7, 2023.

As reported by 404 Media, new users from both regions have seemingly been unable to sign up to the streaming platform with both phone and email verification leading to error pages.

Twitch addressed the situation on social media yesterday, clarifying that it had "temporarily disabled sign ups with email verification in Israel and Palestine" following the October 7 attack.

"We did this to prevent uploads of graphic material related to the attack and to protect the safety of users," it wrote. "Sign ups were not disabled, and we continued to see sign ups from both regions."

The firm went on to clarify that email verification had "inadvertently" not been re-enabled for either region.

"We deeply regret this unacceptable miss, and the confusion it has caused," it continued. "We've fixed the issue, meaning all affected users can sign up with email verification."

Twitch added: "We've also heard concerns whether our Community Guidelines apply to all content on our site. We continue to enforce our rules as consistently as possible, and are actively reviewing content and taking enforcement action where needed."

However, 404 Media alleged that when it attempted to create a new Twitch account from Israel using a VPN, it was blocked and neither phone or email verification worked.

This is not the first time Twitch has had issues with graphic content being streamed on the platform. In 2022, a gunman behind a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York livestreamed the event.

Twitch later issued a statement in which it said it was "taking all possible action" to stop the footage spreading on the site, and removing accounts or content that rebroadcast the video.

In 2019, a gunman who killed two people in Halle, Germany, also livestreamed the event on Twitch. The video was flagged and removed within 30 minutes.