Twitch Streamer Permanently Banned For Pokimane Hate Raid

Twitch has permanently banned Demarcus 'JiDion' Cousins from the platform in the wake of allegations that he conducted a "hate raid" against Imane 'Pokimane' Anys.

As reported by Dexerto, JiDion essentially led his viewers in targeted harassments of Pokimane. He encouraged his chat to head over to Pokimane's ongoing stream, telling them to say "L + Ratio" in her chat.

Pokimane soon realised that she was the victim of a hate raid, and pointed out that Jidion's actions were in violation of Twitch's terms of service. The platform's guidelines on hateful conduct and harassment state that "the severity of enforcement increases when the behavior is targeted, personal, graphic, or repeated/prolonged, incites further abuse, or involves threats of violence or coercion."

"It's embarrassing, and if you get banned I'm not even gonna be sad," Pokimane said. "I'm not gonna apologise. You did that sh*t to yourself, bro."

JiDion was banned almost immediately, although at the time it looked to be a mere 14-day suspension. “My dislike for her has nothing to do with her gender, but her as a person," he said in response to the ban.

Weirdly, it now appears that Twitch has upgrade JiDion's ban to a permanent one. While he accepts that he deserved the intial ban, he has hit out Twitch for the permaban as unfair,

“I’m not here to talk about why I got banned because I deserved to get banned,” JiDion said. “It is what it is. I broke the terms of service. But what I am here to talk about is that I’m here to ask Twitch to make it fair.”

JiDion went on to claim that Twitch made the ban permanent in response to pressure from fellow users who felt the punishment wasn't harsh enough. He believes this is particularly unjust, and robs him of the opportunity to do better in the future.

“I feel Twitch should keep my 14-day suspension, especially for a first-time offense, and not let outside factors determine [it]. What I did was wrong. But how am I supposed to do better the next time if I never get a next time?”

Twitch has not responded to JiDion's claims that the ban was influenced by external forces.