On October 10th, Twitch suddenly and unexpectedly lifted the permanent ban that was given to creator IShowSpeed almost two years ago, in December 2021. The streamer was banned after an incident on an Adin Ross stream, and since then he has been streaming on YouTube Live.
Darren Jason Watkins Jr., also known as Speed, began to pick up traction in early 2021 when clips of his streams went viral on various social media platforms. Since then, Speed has become one of the biggest content creators in the industry, boasting over 20M subscribers on YouTube and consistently ranking within the top 10 YouTube Live creators of the month. Throughout last September, Speed accumulated over 2M hours of watch time and ranked as the third-most-watched creator on the YouTube Gaming platform for the month.
Why was IShowSpeed banned?
Speed was banned from Twitch just as his live-streaming career was taking off after appearing on Adin Ross’ “E-Date” show. Speed was paired up with another influencer Ash Kash to go on a date, but after an inappropriate joke from Speed, he caught the attention of Twitch.
Speed posted the email he received from Twitch detailing his suspension to his Twitter account, which listed his ban reason as “Sexual Coercion or Intimidation”. Speed’s career didn’t appear to be slowed down by the ban, but his story with Twitch didn’t end there.
During the almost two years the creator was banned, he continued to interact with Twitch staff and Twitch’s CEO, Dan Clancy. At the Streamy Awards 2023, IShowSpeed comically knelt at Dan’s feet and begged for the CEO to lift his ban. The Twitch CEO responded by laughing and light-heartedly told the streamer that he would unban him, but he did not have the Twitch app installed on his phone. Clancy was interviewed by creator Quin69 a month later, and in response to Quin’s question about unbanning permanently banned creators, Clancy responded that Twitch is looking into how to approach bringing certain creators back to the platform.
i forgot my login to my twitch ffs????????♂️ pic.twitter.com/0GLcIRBKg5
— ronaldobetter (@ronaldobetter07) October 10, 2023
IShowSpeed hailed his unban with a post on his alternate Twitter account
Will IShowSpeed return to Twitch?
Although IShowSpeed previously live-streamed on Twitch, his career has completely transformed itself since then. IShowSpeed seems content with his YouTube Live broadcasts and larger-scale events, such as participating in the Sidemen charity football match.
Slipz, a member of IShowSpeed’s team, took to Twitter to celebrate the removal of the suspension. Although his tweets were energetic and positive, he did note that this does not mean Speed will return to live-streaming on the platform. However, having his suspension removed from the platform means that Speed will now be freely available to appear on other streams hosted on Twitch. From now on, we may see Speed collaborate with Twitch streamers and appear on their broadcasts, something he was unable to do while banned.
IShowSpeed is finally unbanned from Twitch, but it doesn’t seem likely that the creator will return to the purple platform for his own broadcasts. His career has completely changed during the time he has been banned, and he has established himself as one of the biggest YouTube Gaming live-streamers in the industry. Keep an eye on IShowSpeed’s Twitch page on Streams Charts to see, if he does return, how warm his welcome will be.
