When an emote of him bowling was taken down after another unexpected emote ban by Twitch, streamer OhnePixel brought attention to the confusion that the platform’s moderation generates.
On September 27th, OhnePixel, who is best known for his writing about CS:GO skins, had his “OhnePls” emote removed. An animated image of him bowling from behind was used for the emote, giving the impression that he was dancing. The emote was taken down for violating the community’s rules on “sexual content or nudity” on Twitch.
This is not unusual because Twitch has removed numerous other emotes for the same reasons despite the fact that they seemed completely harmless in the past. However, OhnePixel emphasized how Twitch permits suggestive content in livestreams after being informed of the emote’s removal.
“This [emote] got deleted for, I quote, ‘sexual content or nudity’. My emoji, where I’m bowling, and I’m dancing to the music. Brother, if I go on Twitch, go to the f**king Just Chatting section…”
A stream from a Korean broadcaster is opened by OhnePixel, who just so happens to be dancing in a manner reminiscent of the emote. Ohne exclaimed; “Bro, are you f**king serious?”
Despite “Kreygasm” being an official worldwide emote on the site, Twitch has a history of removing emotes that seem relatively benign for referencing a person’s rear or for what they refer to as “gasm” emotes. Other recent instances include the removal of a kitten emote and a hippo emote that users had rated “adorable.”
In both instances, the streamers and viewers questioned why the site adopted such a strict position against these emotes in contrast to the content that is allowed, especially in the Just Chatting or Hot Tub categories of Twitch. However, one potential explanation for this is that while emotes, once posted, can be used across any stream on the network, streams can be tagged as “for mature audiences only.” In order to safeguard users’ privacy, Twitch does not address infractions of community rules.
Nevertheless, losing this emote shouldn’t be as painful for OhnePixel as losing his CS:GO MAC-10 Heat skin with 4 Reason Holo stickers, which, as his followers frequently remind him, is now worth far more than he originally paid for it.
