A lawmaker’s accusation that Twitch has seen an “amplification of antisemitism” since last year’s Hamas attack on Israel has put the streaming platform at the center of mounting scrutiny over its handling of content related to that war.
Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., wrote a letter to the Amazon-owned platform last week, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News, calling for a probe into one of its top political creators, Hasan Piker, claiming many of his videos contain “antisemitic rhetoric.” A handful of streams are linked in the footnotes of the letter, including brief clips in which Piker is seen issuing his support for Palestinian people and criticizing Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Piker told NBC News that many of the videos cited in the letter were taken out of context. He noted that in many of the videos being called out by Torres, Piker was criticizing the Israeli government, not Jewish people.
Members of Congress frequently write letters in which they call for probes into different matters, though not all turn into investigations. Still, the letter marks one of the more high-profile callouts of the popular streaming platform over content regulations related to the Israel-Hamas war.
In recent years, Twitch has become a hub for political punditry. Creators stream debates over political issues regularly, and some politicians — including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — have made appearances on the platform to discuss politics, sometimes while also playing video games. However, unlike other social media platforms, in the last year Twitch has largely averted controversies involving Israel and Gaza.
But critics of the platform — including Torres — have argued that hate toward Jewish people has prevailed in the last year, despite Twitch’s community guidelines which do “not permit behavior that is motivated by hatred, prejudice or intolerance.”
When asked for comment, a Twitch spokesperson referred NBC News to a Nov. 1 blog post from Twitch CEO Dan Clancy.
“There is no place on Twitch for racism, hatred, or harassment of any kind, including antisemitism and Islamophobia,” Clancy wrote in the blog post, addressed to the Twitch community, adding that the platform works “hard to ensure that our community is a safe place.”
There is no place on Twitch for racism, hatred, or harassment of any kind, including antisemitism and Islamophobia
-Twitch CEO Dan Clancy, in a nov. 1 blog post addressed to the twitch community
Piker, who has amassed 2.7 million followers on Twitch, said that the attacks on the platform are unjustified.
“They’re just trying to take down Twitch in its entirety for the crime of not punishing me,” Piker, who is known online by his usernames HasanAbi and HasanTheHun, told NBC News in an interview, in response to Torres’ letter.
The Turkish-American streamer said he’s been “doxxed and swatted” by bad actors on the platform, referencing alleged instances in the past which he said made him contemplate leaving Twitch.
But Piker said he’s “actually combated antisemitism” for his entire public broadcasting career, which dates back to his time on the progressive YouTube show “The Young Turks,” created and run by his uncle Cenk Uygar.
“You have to just clip stuff in 15-second increments about complex geopolitical situations to be like, ‘See, he means the exact opposite of what he’s saying,'” Piker said of the clips in Torres’ letter.
The criticism of Piker came the same month Twitch was accused of disabling sign-ups for the platform from some users in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
The platform issued an apology on Oct. 20, writing that it had “temporarily disabled sign ups with email verification in Israel and Palestine” after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel in order to “prevent uploads of graphic material related to the attack and to protect the safety of users.”
Sign-ups to the platform were not entirely disabled, according to Twitch, as users could choose to sign up with phone verification. However, the platform said it “inadvertently … did not re-enable email verification sign ups for either region.”
“We deeply regret this unacceptable miss, and the confusion it has caused,” the platform said. “We’ve fixed the issue, meaning all affected users can sign up with email verification.”
That same week, Twitch issued a 30-day ban to a group of streamers, many of whom are Arab, for “hateful conduct” during their panel discussion at TwitchCon in San Diego in September.
Streamers CapriSunnPapi, Fr0gan, Raffoulticket, DenimsTV and Vio discussed which popular streamers on the platform could and could not use the Arabic term of endearment “habibi,” which translates to “my love.” Their list placed pro-Israel streamers on the bottom and Arab streamers on the top. They were ranked from “Arab” to “loves Sabra,” an American and Israeli-owned hummus brand.
“Ngl I’m gonna take a few days off and I’m going back live and ranking hummus just to prove a point. #hummusgate,” CapriSunnPapi wrote on X.
Raffoulticket, who is Jewish, called critics of the panel “so anti semitic I’m the one who made the list on ‘who can say habibi’ and they try and spin this as ‘Frogan ranking people from Arab to Jew,’” adding the the critics should “keep Jews’ out” of their mouths.
DenimsTV retweeted author Jake Steinberg who, while referencing Piker, wrote he was “ genuinely grateful to have as competent of a jewish ally as hasan so prominently online.”
NBC News has reached out to the creators who were temporarily banned for additional comment.
While there was no blowback initially at TwitchCon, online criticism grew in October when streamer Ethan Klein, host of the H3 Podcast on YouTube, posted a video titled “Twitch Has a Major Problem,” where he said he felt the panel was “kinda Arab good, Jew bad.”
“I’ve been suspecting Twitch has an antisemitism problem,” Klein, who is Jewish, said in his Oct. 18 video on YouTube, which mentions the TwitchCon panel.
The Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit founded to track antisemitism and other injustices, also weighed in on Oct. 21, writing in a statement that it spoke with Twitch staff “after becoming aware of several concerning incidents.”
“Twitch must learn from this situation and improve how they address antisemitism and hate on their platform, which is an ongoing and significant challenge,” the ADL wrote in a post on X.
The organization, which has faced criticism over what some view as pro-Israel advocacy and bias, said it encourages Twitch “to take meaningful action, such as collaborating with the platform’s Jewish community, providing staff, streamers and moderators with antisemitism training, and updating how they review programming for their live events.”
Fr0gan defended the panel and the commentary about the “Habibi list” in a post on X on Oct. 19, writing the “tier list was ‘who has habibi pass’” which is a meme tier list we did with a variety of creators.”
“the whole basis of my podcast ayyrabs with capri and raff is that we are all arabs from different religious backgrounds — i am muslim, capri is christian, and raff is jewish. sabra hummus is objectively the worst hummus to exist and is the unfortunate standard of hummus in the us,” Frogan added.
Also in October, Twitch issued a 14-day suspension to an account run by Zack “Asmongold” Hoyt after he made comments about the death of Palestinians in Gaza, saying they come from an “inferior culture.”
Hoyt posted a video response walking back the comments. He also posted a statement on X on Oct. 14, writing, in part, “Of course no one deserves to have their life destroyed even if they do things or have views I find regressive.”
“I’ll do better,” he added.
In Piker’s opinion, Twitch is the social media platform that has done the best job at weeding out bad actors and keeping its personalities from promoting hateful material.
In 2021, Piker was temporarily kicked off Twitch for using a derogatory term for white people. He said he’s also been warned by the platform when he’s crossed the line for showing certain content, like Houthi music videos. The Ansarallah group, a group of Yemeni rebels commonly known as Houthis, is designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. Department of State.
Piker described Twitch’s application of its terms of service as “rigorous,” in his opinion. He has a large presence on other platforms, including on YouTube, where he has 1.42 million subscribers, and on TikTok, where he has 925,000 followers.
“It’s actually one of the most stringently applied TOS systems on any platform,” Piker said. “I am a content creator. I’m very familiar with all these platforms. Twitch has the best terms of service, right, because they actually apply their term service.”
In his letter, Torres asked Twitch to “stop popularizing those who popularize antisemitism” and floated a possible congressional probe.
“Congress has been scrutinizing the amplified antisemitism that has taken hold in the wake of October 7th,” he wrote. “Just like no person is above the law, no company in America—not even Twitch—is above Congressional oversight.”
Over the weekend, Twitch appeared to quietly roll out a new warning label for streams discussing broader “political and sensitive social issues.” That includes “discussions about elections, civic integrity, war or military conflict, and civil rights,” the platform said.
Labeling will still not be required for “streams containing informational or educational content that aim to share knowledge in a neutral, fact-based manner, rather than engaging in any kind of advocacy for an issue or candidate.”
In his blog post, Clancy, Twitch’s CEO, reiterated the company’s hateful conduct policy, which forbids “behavior that is motivated by hatred, prejudice or intolerance.
“Millions of streamers, with a wide variety of views and perspectives, spend time on Twitch,” he wrote. “We recognize that some content, while allowed on our service, may be objectionable to some members of our community. The views shared by streamers on Twitch are not the views of Twitch nor are they my personal views.”
Kalhan Rosenblatt is a reporter covering youth and internet culture for NBC News, based in New York.
