Pokimane escapes ban and handed warning for NSFW content

Imane "Pokimane" Anys has spoken out after she accidentally showed NSFW content on a live stream claiming she was handed a warning from Twitch for the infraction.

Pokimane got herself into bother when she was reacting to user-submitted content during a May 19 broadcast and one viewer managed to sneak a porn link past her moderators causing Pokimane to bring it up on stream and show it to thousands of viewers.

She quickly came off the site, but the clip, of course, went viral and led to calls for her to be banned from the platform as this what would happen to anyone else on the platform.

The next day though Pokimane, during a Valorant stream, explained that rather than a ban she was handed a warning.

"Yeah, they definitely do give you a warning," she said. "They’re like, ‘You have to be really careful about that kind of stuff.’ I’ve definitely had issues like that in the past, too. It’s just that I’ve been streaming for so long that it’s not very frequent — or it’s not frequent enough to lead to a ban."

She then goes on to explain that she understands if she was banned, as she has "messed up in the past", and claims that other Twitch streamers have had similar incidents which have also not led to bans.

The incident was clearly a mistake on the part of Pokimane but questions must be asked around why bans and suspensions are handed down so selectively, and more could be done to explain decisions, as this isn't the first time that people have called foul on a decision by Twitch. 

There was a furore when it seemed that Natalia "Alinity" Mogollon escaped a ban after flashing a boob on stream, Twitch did subsequently ban her for 24-hours but accusations of favouritism still get raised.

• Read more: What is the Twitch Safety Advisory Council? It's probably not what you think...

It is important to note that Pokimane is also one of a select few streamers that signed "golden handcuff" deals with the platform after Mixer and Facebook began signing talent away from the Amazon-owned platform.

The recently formed and controversial Twitch Safety Advisory Council has a stated goal of making issues around this clearer, the council had it's first meeting recently and it will be interesting to see if there is greater clarification around this issues going forward.