Twitch Reverts To Chat Ban
Twitch recently changed the way chat bans worked, but after a negative reaction, the change was reversed. Some streamers use a ban as a joke to temporarily ban their long-time Twitch viewers. People who were banned on Twitch were no longer able to follow the channel, thanks to a recent change. So, if you unfollow someone in your Twitch chat after accidentally permanently banning them, or if you did it on purpose, as a joke or otherwise, that person will unfollow you. Stranger still, this wasn’t announced by Twitch at all, but rather by security alert specialist Ravager on Twitter. This elicited a natural negative reaction, and it has since been removed.
This was revealed on November 3rd, and the news of a Twitch chat ban did not go over well. Twitch claims that this mechanic arrived on their platform earlier than expected. Whether or not that is true, the fact that this feature was not announced at all is intriguing. So there’s a chance that what the streaming giant said in their tweet is true.
This feature, according to one Twitter user, is a problem for many streams:
“This is a problem for joke bans, and as I was just reminded, people also use channel points for this.” Nightmare”.
Joke bans and streams that allow you to submit channel points in exchange for a user ban are two completely different topics. CommanderRoot explains that a chat ban unfollows the user but does not prevent them from re-following. To avoid this, you must still block that person. If your mods wanted to, they could use this feature to completely destroy your following. A moderator goes “rogue” and starts banning people, or they are hacked. Suddenly, you’ve lost a large number of followers as a result of bans.
Twitch, on the other hand, reversed the decision and announced it on Twitter:
“A product feature was inadvertently released early while working to stop bot abuse.” As a result, accounts that were banned in a channel were removed as followers automatically. This change has been reversed, and bans should now work as expected. We’ve listened to your concerns about this change, and the final product should address most of them. We’ll keep you updated as we progress, and when we’re ready to launch, we’ll let you know.”
We don’t know when or even if this feature will return, but we expect Twitch to keep its users informed this time. While this Twitch chat ban feature had good intentions, it was clearly flawed, and it was not ready to be released. It was ready to be tested, but not ready to go live, especially without notification. This could have resulted in a slew of issues for streamers of all sizes.