A new update to Twitch’s Terms of Service bans everyone from multi-streaming on “Twitch-like” platforms — including non-affiliates.
On June 6, 2023, Twitch revealed an update to its Branded Content guidelines that sparked quite a bit of backlash from its biggest creators and could affect charity and esports streams.
But that’s not all they updated, as the Amazon-owned platform also issued several updates to their Terms of Service.
One of those updates includes a new simulcasting section, that bans everyone from multi-streaming on “Twitch-like” platforms like YouTube and Kick.
Twitch TOS update bans everyone from multi-streaming
Back in August 2022, Twitch revealed that Partners & Affiliates were able to multi-stream on other platforms as long as they were to “short-form mobile services” like Instagram and TikTok Live.
Since then, the clause has only been mentioned in the Partner & Affiliate guidelines, but as of May 31, it has been added to the Terms of Service governing the entire website.
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This means that all users of the platform — including non-affiliates — can no longer multi-stream to platforms like YouTube and Kick.
The update to TOS has kept the same rules as the previous guidelines set for Affiliate and Partner streamers, luckily, so Twitch creators can still multi-stream to mobile platforms like Instagram and TikTok without any issue.
These guidelines also do not prevent creators from streaming on other platforms separately from Twitch, meaning users can still stream on YouTube and Kick as long as they’re not also broadcasting on the purple app.
We’ve reached out to Twitch to clarify the update as well and will update this article if they comment on the change.
In the meantime, head over to read Twitch’s apology following the Branded Content guidelines backlash.