US Army Returns to Twitch, Not Going Well for Them

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US Army Returns to Twitch, Not Going Well for Them

The U.S. Army is once again live-streaming on Twitch, and Twitch chat is once again flooded with comments about war crimes, and this time there appears to be no effort to stop it.

The Army's problems began in July, when the esports team's live stream became widely known and a flood of users repeatedly asked streamers about war crimes in Twitch chat. As expected, bans were issued, but the issue took a major turn when Columbia University's Knight First Amendment Institute said that because the Army is an agency of the U.S. government, removing comments and banning users would violate the Constitution. [Because a few weeks ago, the Army said it was "reviewing and clarifying its policies and procedures regarding streams" and that it would resume streams "in the near future" after an extended absence. He also said that banned users would be allowed to return as long as they abide by the team's rules (actually Twitch's rules) that prohibit "personal attacks, profane language, pornography, harassment, and bullying."

These guidelines say nothing about what actually started all the problems in the first place, and seem to be going full speed ahead on that point: the chat is currently in slow mode, which is helping to reduce spam, but otherwise it is hardly moderated It does not appear to be moderated.

While there are occasional expressions of support, the majority of comments are critical of the US military: statements and questions about war crimes, the killing of US citizens, the prevalence of sexual assault in the military, predatory recruitment, US-led destabilization efforts around the world, and more. Anti-Military spam is also prevalent, and of course there are many personal attacks, which, despite the Army's ban, are allowed so far.

The stream has been live for nearly two hours at this point, and just this minute World of Warcraft began streaming. It is not clear what the purpose of this exercise is, other than to wait for critics, but so far there is no indication that they will give up any time soon.

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