Streamer Alecludford was shocked when he discovered Twitch had removed two of his channel’s emotes, honoring his late fiance Stephanie and her dog, for violating the platform’s terms of service.
Twitch are no strangers when it comes to removing emotes for violating TOS, but what constitutes such an infringement can sometimes confusing to both streamers and viewers alike.
During a June 22 Twitch stream, Alecludford addressed the missing emotes and explained how upset he was after seeing that they’d been removed.
“One of them was Bella,” the streamer explained. “My fiance that passed away in January – one was her f**king dog made to look like a Trihard emote. It was just funny! What the hell, man?”
Trihard is a global emote featuring streamer TriHex appearing excited, one that’s been around for a long time and used in many chats.
“The other one was Stephanie’s face looking angry with blue hair. And it’s a f**king violation,” he continued. “I can’t – I just can’t believe it, man.”
After a few moments of silence and unable to come to grips with Twitch’s decision, he finished his statement: “It just had me in a terrible mood all day. It is very ridiculous.”
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Also taking to Twitter, Alecludford posted a screenshot of an email Twitch had sent him about the emotes and their removal, claiming they had been reported by a user.
Pretty sure this is what you mean, @twitch just delete all my emotes I don't have time for this pic.twitter.com/sLU6wICrMa
— Alec (@Alecludford) June 22, 2020
Why did Twitch remove the emotes?
Despite there being no further disciplinary action, it’s unclear what exactly what was wrong with the emotes, to begin with, that warranted their removal – especially one of his late fiance.
Twitch has removed modified versions of global emotes before, such as when M0xyy has his “5head” deleted because the platform owns the 4head emote. Therefore, it’s possible this could be why the dog Trihard emote was removed.
However, that doesn’t explain why the one of Stephanie’s face was in violation of TOS, something that obviously didn’t sit well with the streamer.
“Just delete all my emotes I don’t have time for this,” Alecludford wrote. “Oh, and rest in peace Stephanie you will always be in my heart.”
It’s not clear whether or not the streamer will look to appeal Twitch’s decision, but we will keep you updated if there are any further developments in this story.