Protect streamers by preventing any access to channel for banned users
This is not to take away from the improvements that have already been made, and are being implemented. The work that is being done is greatly appreciated.
However, further change is needed to better protect streamers for banned users. Merely preventing chatting is not enough to deter harassment, stalking, or intrusive bot behavior.
Most people are aware that measures often can be circumvented, that is not an excuse for the lack of protection that currently exists.
Streamers need a way to completely cut off a user from content. I believe the proposed measures are reasonable, and will also provide protection against abuse as well as preventing intrusive bots from squatting in channels without permission.
The proposed changes are:
1. A banned user is prevented from connecting to a channel's chat completely, which means their name does not appear in the list of viewers.
2. A banned user is prevented from viewing the stream itself, on site or using other means.
3. A banned user is blocked from subscribing and following, and will be automatically unsubscribed and / or unfollowed.
4. A banned user is prevented from viewing any other channel information and content, including the streamer's panels, VODs, clips, followers, and followed accounts.
5. A streamer must be able to toggle an option to treat logged out viewers similarly as a banned user, preventing any access until they log in.
Additionally, to prevent excessive account creation, the following measures should be implemented as well:
6. Accounts need to be verified by e-mail.
7. Limit the amount of accounts per e-mail, to 1 or at a maximum 2.
8. Limit the amount of accounts that can be created from a single IP address per day.
Thank you for your consideration.

We are happy to announce that we have released an update that addresses some of these points.
Channel Banned users will no longer be able to view the chat, and they will also be removed from your Chat list. There is an issue that has caused us to pause this temporarily, but we expect a fix to be out very soon – stay tuned to the Twitter thread below for the update.
Additionally, if you Block a user, they will not be able to subscribe or follow, and Blocking them will automatically unfollow them.
https://twitter.com/TwitchSupport/status/1243643979897417730?s=20How to Block a user: https://help.twitch.tv/s/article/how-to-manage-harassment-in-chat#BlockWhispersandMessagesfromStrangers
I will leave this topic open for your points about being unable to fully view the remaining content of a channel, and account creation.
-
aJive commented
The “Partial Release” was in April, it’s September. What’s the status?
-
dahoppe18 commented
A bam should be a ban from viewing the creator and having any kind of access to the community.
-
StoicWolfGaming commented
A ban is a ban, enough said. Viewing privileges revoked, period.
-
Stitchings commented
If you are banned from a channel, that's what it should mean. It shouldn't mean that you can see the stream or the people watching it. It should mean that streamer doesn't exist to you at all. There shouldn't be any of this appealing your ban. You were banned from the channel for a good and valid reason. People have circumvented their bans from channels and have gone onto further harass streamers or their viewers through whispers or other means. They have also gone onto have their friends join in on these harassments. If someone is banned, then make it STAY that way unless the streamer and their mod team decides to reverse the ban on their own. None of this trying to appeal your ban. The moderators and the streamer banned the viewer/user and they know why they did. For the safety and sanity of users on twitch, remove the appeal feature and make it so if someone is banned from a channel, THE CHANNEL DOES NOT EXIST TO THEM AT ALL.
-
GamingHuskies commented
Banned users who harass me should not be able to view my content. I do not want these people watching my streams.
-
PlokGamingTwitch commented
Also prevent them from being able to follow. A lot of the bots lately are still following (with all following event triggers) even though they're already banned in channels.
-
Shadowed_lady commented
I am a mod of a mature channel and have been on Twitch for a few years now.
It is clearly stated in the rules that it is a mature audience and also clearly marked when you come into the channel. I have had to kick out people as young as 11.
I just recently found out that banning them still allows them to watch the stream. Last night I kicked out a 14yr old for breaking the rules but it's not good if they can still watch the streams.
I believe there is hardly a point in banning them if they can still hear and read the chat. I think that they should be unable to watch/chat/interact/ everything.
It would be safer all around.
Thanks -
urbanbohemian commented
When a user is banned from a channel, in addition to being unable to engage with chat, they are shown nothing but Twitch ads in that channel.
This would prevent abuse via sharing or clipping moments to use as harassment on other platforms, dissuade them from staying in the channel at all, and deliver additional revenue to the streamer and Twitch.
Similar to blocking users on other platforms, they would see nothing at all. Leveraging "ads are a necessary evil" for good means that at least a streamer might be compensated via ad revenue for having to manage and deal with abuse.
-
CalthaPalustris commented
Though it requires some changes, from a technical point of view it shouldn't be too hard to archieve:
1. make streams non available publicly
The technic behind that already exists for sub-only streams.
2. give non-blacklisted people access to the stream
Also quite similar to the sub-only stream feature, the technic already exists. You just have to take the banned chatters list into account.Basically it's 1 more flag and some more checks for that flag plus the blacklist.
@Eewec People are able to make unban requests already.
-
Eewec commented
This also means that anyone banned due to a moderation miss-click (happened earlier to someone due to the moderator not clicking the correct name) would be unable to appeal if no one noticed the wrong person got banned.
-
darthclide commented
d4rkfader You are kind of hijacking a thread about permanently removing banned people from watching a stream by talking about removing perma-bans from Twitch. If someone bans you they probably don't want your support anymore (both financially and as a viewer).
And I am unsure what you mean by "read-only chat"? You can already view chat without being logged in and sub only mode doesn't stop you from seeing chat? If anything, we need "followers for X amount of time" chat restriction to expand to "can only see other's chat messages after following for X amount of time".
-
DarkMisoPhader commented
I got banned from two streamers because of a two-strike rule (like mentioning other VTubers) breaking on one of the associated Discord servers. These kind of moderators of course flat-out rejected the appeal too and forever banned as such. Even a week or month would be better than forever. And add a way to stay subscribed and add silent support options. And read-only chat.
Banning as it is now is too harsh. Also, I had gifted subs to others for both of the channels, but I can’t give any more support because of the ban. -
DarkMisoPhader commented
This would mean also people that are not logged it shouldn’t be able to view it. Also, some moderators place preventive bans on every channel you may be on if you break the rules on Discord for example. It’d be rather harsh imho to block all viewing.
-
mo_ose1998 commented
Well you cant since you can watch streams without an account.
-
darthclide commented
NeonP1xels Sounds like my suggestion is exactly what you want: HWID bans. This would stop them from viewing or loading your channel from whichever computer/smartphone they are loading it from. The added bonus is that if they naively just jump to another device without logging out on it first, that device will automatically get HWID banned as well.
But there is basically nothing you can do to stop them from viewing with no account logged in until Twitch adds a feature called "require logged in account to view my stream". But even then, how will you know who the kids are if they don't talk? I guess Twitch could add an option that requires a few messages spoken every hour to watch your stream, but you can see how unfeasible and unfair things get when you want a "perfect" system.
I think HWID bans + no viewing allowed without an account logged in would help you a bit, as well as greatly help those dealing with severe harassment and doxxing.
-
NeonP1xels commented
First of all, my full support to people being harassed, and I second the need for tools to manage the problem.
My personal need for this functionality is different, and I'd like to point it out:
On my streams I often have adult-oriented content, not "porny", but rather adult subject matters in the conversation, as well as games with content I don't think younger audiences should watch without parental supervision/consent.
I do my best to clearly signal this content, not only by enabling the "mature audiences" switch, but by adding a 18+ tag to the stream title, as well as icons indicating the content (explained in my panels).
I even have a glowing neon 18+ sign on-screen and even more warning labels.None of this prevents kids from popping up (and kids being kids, it probably encourages some of them), and none of this prevents parents from being concerned when their kids bring up the funny thing that twitch person said.
Since kindly (or not so kindly) telling kids that they shouldn't be watching without their parents knowing doesn't work, I sometimes need the ability to not just ban them from chat, but to make sure they can't watch (parents won't care that the chat is disabled if they can hear my ramblings about adult subject matters on the speakers).
And I'm sure there are many more use cases where being able to block people from viewing the stream is desirable.
I understand that this is not a trivial issue to solve, given how people can just make sockpuppet accounts or the like. Just wanted to share another scenario where this functionality might be needed.
-
BurntPork commented
That would have to be optional, since the only way it could work would be to make it so that you need to be logged in to watch streams, and that means that many streams would lose a lot of viewers if it was forced.
-
Landar486 commented
The tech is already there to restrict people from watching sub only streams, why not work with it to restrict people who are banned in the same manner?
-
SarahJK commented
Why not just replace the stream with ads for the banned users? Twitch get's more ad money and the streamers lives get that much easier
-
SapphireDrew commented
This idea is unenforceable without a massive overall of how Twitch functions imo. What's preventing them from just viewing and stream sniping by logging out of Twitch? There's no way to prevent someone from stalking someone on Twitch unless they require everyone to have an account and be logged in before viewing streams. Even then, the bar Twitch / Amazon has set for account creation is so ridiculously low that some trolls already have literally hundreds of throwaway accounts; plus VPNs are a thing (which should also be banned).