ExoHydraX, a popular partnered Twitch streamer and professional Call Of Duty player, has criticised the platform's choice to ban her over a hot tub stream, calling it "beyond disappointing."
In the video, ExoHydraX is wearing a bikini and is sitting on an inflatable dolphin in a paddling pool. The overlays say that with every new subscriber she gains she will write their name on the dolphin, and donations will unlock things like "butterfly on wall," "name on body," "yoga pose," and "name on forehead." This is an example of the hot tub meta on Twitch - someone dressed in swimwear sitting in a hot tub chatting with their viewers and interacting with them - and while it is within the rules and regulation of acceptable content on the streaming service, it has proven to be a divisive trend on the platform. Félix "xQc" Lengyel went as far as to say that it is "the most pathetic thing we've seen on Twitch in forever," whereas Imane "Pokimane" Anys has announced that she'll be doing a hot tub stream to celebrate her birthday.
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So, ExoHydraX received a three day ban for "sexually suggestive content" on May 9th. The specific reason was not stated, but a ban of this sort comprises "sexually suggestive behaviour, content, or commentary" such as "making explicit gestures towards breasts, buttocks, or genitals on stream." Expectedly, the streamer was upset that this had occurred when streamers have not had the same consequences from these same hot tub streams. "Good luck being black and being a streamer on twitch I do the exact same content that yt girl do but yet I get banned but they don't ? beyond disapointing [sic] THIS ISN'T OK," she said in a deleted Tweet that shared a screenshot of the email she'd gotten from Twitch. Fans have rallied round ExoHydraX, whereas others are arguing that her race has nothing to do with Twitch's choice to suspend her account temporarily.
"We understand at Twitch this has been getting a lot of attention from the community lately, and we have been watching closely," said Marcus 'djWHEAT' Graham, head of creator development at Twitch. "Our nudity and attire policy does allow bathing suits in an appropriate context, and hot tubs do fall under that criteria. However, what has not changed is that sexually suggestive and explicit content is not allowed under the guidelines, under the ToS, and Twitch will take action when that is reported to us." All in all, this is one more example to show that Twitch's policies are not comprehensive enough for monitoring the multitude of content creation that has found a place on its platform.
Featured Image Credit: ExoHydraX via Twitter