Will Ninja Sue Amazon Over Twitch Pornography Controversy?

Tyler “Ninja” Blevins’ split from Twitch has been unpredictably messy. The most popular Fortnite streamer on the Amazon-owned platform announced earlier this month he was leaving the streaming giant to play on Microsoft’s Mixer platform. While leaving Twitch and his more than 14 million followers was bound to get a little messy, the divorce turned ugly earlier this week. 

A couple of days ago, users noticed Ninja’s inactive Twitch account was recommending other Fortnite streamers. One of those streams featured a user broadcasting pornography, a clear violation of Twitch’s code of conduct. 

In a Twitter video, Ninja expressed his disappointment with Twitch using his old channel and brand to promote other streamers and the pornographic content. 

Disgusted and so sorry. pic.twitter.com/gnUY5Kp52E

— Ninja (@Ninja) August 11, 2019

“I’ve been streaming for eight years, to build my brand and to build that channel,” Ninja said. “They were still using my channel to promote other streamers. Well now, there was a porn account that was number 1, being recommended on my channel.”

Twitch CEO Emmett Shear issued an apology to Ninja on Twitter while saying the recommendation section on his page was something he’d “been experimenting with.” 

1/ Our community comes to Twitch looking for live content. To help ensure they find great, live channels we’ve been experimenting with showing recommended content across Twitch, including on streamers’ pages that are offline.

— Emmett Shear (@eshear) August 11, 2019

2/ This helps all streamers as it creates new community connections. However, the lewd content that appeared on the @ninja offline channel page grossly violates our terms of service, and we’ve permanently suspended the account in question.

— Emmett Shear (@eshear) August 11, 2019

3/ We have also suspended these recommendations while we investigate how this content came to be promoted.

— Emmett Shear (@eshear) August 11, 2019

4/ On a more personal note, I want to apologize directly to @ninja that this happened. It wasn’t our intent, but it should not have happened. No excuses.

— Emmett Shear (@eshear) August 11, 2019

The debacle has brought up legitimate questions about Twitch and how they operate inactive channels and whether the platform had the right to change Ninja’s account to advertise other streamers. Unfortunately, testing the service was a bad idea made worse by the NSFW content that ended up on Ninja’s old page. 

So, what happens next? Will Ninja opt to sue Amazon/Twitch for the mistake? Will Ninja’s channel ultimately be removed from the streaming service? Will streamers like Dr. Lupo or Tfue make the switch from Twitch to Mixer in lieu of the drama? We’ve got the odds: