OTK streamer Nick ‘Nmplol’ Polom told Twitch to “grow up” after they censored his moderators from using the word “obese” in a poll.
Twitch censorship is always a hot topic of debate. The streaming platform drew hefty controversy in December 2020 when it effectively banned the words ‘simp’ and ‘virgin’. This had the Streisand Effect of making these words more popular than ever before.
Meanwhile, the likes of Minecraft streamer and Dream SMP star GeorgeNotFound have even had channels banned for having an “inappropriate username” despite the names not overtly containing offensive language.
This latest point of contention, discovered by OTK’s Nick Polom, raised the eyebrows of his fans and prompted him to address Twitch directly and question the platform’s guidelines.
Twitch blocks “obese” in poll
On his April 10 stream, Polom was about to do a weight test live on his cooking stream, and wanted to run a poll where fans could vote on which BMI category they thought he would fall into: overweight or obese.
However, moderator Orophia complained the polling system wouldn’t let her type the word “obese” as an option for Polom’s weight category, and Polom wasn’t happy.
“Time out,” Polom said. “Twitch, we’re trying to run a prediction, and you won’t let it type obese. Are you that sensitive? Come on guys. That’s so stupid… It’s a real-world term. Jesus.”
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Obesity is officially used as a medical term by the USA’s national public health agency, the CDC, to describe people with a Body Mass Index (BMI) greater than 30.
After weighing himself, Nmplol found out that he weighed less than 200lbs, putting his BMI at 28. This puts him in the “overweight” category, one category below “obese”.
Twitch’s community guidelines classes “content that expresses inferiority based on a protected characteristic, including, but not limited to, statements related to physical, mental, and moral deficiencies” as “hateful conduct”, which could explain why the term was prohibited.
Whether Polom’s comments will see Twitch review their policy remains to be seen, but it seems unlikely he will be able to run a poll about his weight anytime soon.