Bezos-owned Twitch streaming service temporarily suspends Trump for ‘hateful conduct’

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The Twitch streaming service, which is owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, has temporarily suspended President Donald Trump’s campaign account for “hateful conduct” including footage from his earliest campaign speech.

“Hateful conduct is not allowed on Twitch. In line with our policies, President Trump’s channel has been issued a temporary suspension from Twitch for comments made on stream, and the offending content has been removed,” a spokesperson for the company told Fox News.

The suspension stems from Trump’s 2015 speech in which he announced his bid for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination at Trump Tower and recent content from his campaign rally in Tulsa.

In the June 2015 speech, the president created a firestorm of controversy when he criticized some Mexicans crossing illegally into the United States.

“When do we beat Mexico at the border? They’re laughing at us, at our stupidity. And now they are beating us economically. They are not our friend, believe me. But they’re killing us economically,” the future president said.

“The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else’s problems,” he continued. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems to us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

“It’s coming from more than Mexico. It’s coming from all over South and Latin America, and it’s coming probably— probably— from the Middle East,” Trump said.

While his comments may offend some Americans, factually, he was correct.

“To hear directly from the President, people should download the Trump app and text ‘Trump’ to 88022,” Tim Murtaugh, the president’s reelection campaign spokesman, told Fox News when asked for comment about the suspension.

The Twitch spokesperson told the network that the Trump campaign was warned when it joined last year that content uploaded to the platform would have to adhere to the company’s standards.

The platform’s community rules say: “Hateful conduct is any content or activity that promotes, encourages, or facilitates discrimination, denigration, objectification, harassment, or violence based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability or serious medical condition or veteran status, and is prohibited. Any hateful conduct is considered a zero-tolerance violation.”

In providing examples, Twitch flagged the 2015 content in which the president-to-be was critical of some Mexicans.

Also, the platform flagged the following content from the president’s Tulsa rally:

“Hey, it’s 1:00 o’clock in the morning and a very tough, I’ve used the word on occasion, hombre, a very tough hombre is breaking into the window of a young woman whose husband is away as a traveling salesman or whatever he may do. And you call 911 and they say, ‘I’m sorry, this number’s no longer working.’ By the way, you have many cases like that, many, many, many. Whether it’s a young woman, an old woman, a young man or an old man and you’re sleeping.”

It’s not clear why Twitch editors flagged either speech, though it’s likely because some terminology was found to be offensive to some.

The Trump campaign uses the Amazon-owned free platform to stream campaign rallies and other events.

Reddit also banned the r/The Donald along with about 2,000 other channels on Monday in a stated bid to crack down on so-called ‘hate speech.’

In a post, CEO Steve Huffman explained that the r/The Donald subreddit has often violated the platform’s community policies in the past.

Twitter has also begun censoring and flagging the president, though the platform routinely ignores legitimately hateful content posted by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in which he recently called for the elimination of Israel on the platform.

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