The 30-day ban of VTuber fallenshadow, aka Shondo, has caused significant backlash from the VTuber community, who accuse Twitch of favoring non-VTubers.
Twitch's recent decision to ban VTuber fallenshadow (Shondo) for 30 days has drawn intense criticism from the VTuber community. The backlash centers around allegations of favoritism and inconsistent rule enforcement by the platform.
Update: According to StreamerBans, fallenshadow has been unbanned from Twitch after only one and a half days.
Reason for the Ban
Fallenshadow was banned for getting drunk on the stream, which Twitch called "self-harming behavior" in a follow-up email. This ban not only halts her earnings, but also means that her subscribers will have to re-subscribe after her suspension ends.
In Shondo's stream, she also expressed concern about her future, which may have contributed to the self-harm classification. In a follow-up tweet, she clarified:
"I’m afraid for the future because I always have the niggling thought that all of my friends will leave me or everyone will leave me or things will get worse because eventually my meds will stop working. That doesn’t mean I want to hurt myself in any way or plan on it."
VTuber Community Response
Fellow VTubers have criticized Twitch for a perceived double standard. Bao noted, "Twitch's favorite gamers can say ki** yourself, but somehow bringing up mental health in any capacity during a drinking stream warrants a 30-day suspension." Pipkin Pippa added, "Someone at Twitch actually seems to have it in for you at this point."Shondo also expressed frustration with what she sees as unfair rules and questioned the transparency of Twitch's policies: "Is drinking on stream against TOS now? Or is it just against the made-up second set of rules that my partner manager admitted moderation has for me (that I’m not allowed to see or hear about, btw)?"
Twitch has not commented beyond the initial email, and the ban remains in place.