Popular Twitch streamer ‘Kaylee’ has received criticism after boasting about the number of men she has had permanently banned from the streaming platform, but she claims that it was in her own defense, and that the clips were out of context.
Kaylee, who boasts over 20,000 followers on the platform, appeared to brag about having her record of having men banned, in a now-deleted clip.
“I wanna know how many men I’ve gotten banned,” she said. “It’s pretty fucking hilarious. I would like to know how many men I’ve gotten banned in the past year. It has to be like, a good 20 or so.”
She went on to explain that she uses an “admin” in her chat to permanently ban random accounts. “It would be quite unfortunate if I reported all of these accounts to Twitch and I got you all permanently banned. Maybe I should do that, what do you guys think? You guys think I should do that? What do you guys thinks? I could be petty as fuck and do it, just for the fuck of it. Yeah, okay, I’ll do it.”
“I’ll just message the admin I have in my chat all the time,” she continued. “Because I do have an admin in my chat all the time, so you know, it’s pretty easy for me. I’ll do that for you seeing as you wanna talk shit for no reason. No biggie.”
From the clip, it appears Kaylee is banning certain accounts due to them using the chat to “talk shit”, or otherwise harass her.
Kaylee herself tweeted that the comments had been taken out of context, and that she was just ‘defending herself’.
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However, many commenters were critical of Kaylee’s admissions, unhappy with the what they saw as an abuse of power.
Others came to her defense though, arguing that she was banning people who had been harassing her or had been racist, and therefore was justified in her actions.
Some have called for Kaylee to be punished by Twitch for what they deem unfair behavior, and some argued that if genders were reversed, and it was a man banning women, there would have already been repercussions.
Twitch has faced criticism itself in the past for perceived favoritism, accused of handing out harsher or more lenient punishments to some streamers, and being inconsistent.
Kaylee is of course within her right to remove users from her chat at her whim, but having users banned from the site entirely is another step, that requires Twitch itself to take action on the accounts reported.