At Twitch, our mission is to provide the best shared social video experience created by our growing community where creators and communities can interact safely. To achieve this goal, we ask that all users participate in such a way that promotes a friendly, positive experience for our global community.
In addition to our Terms of Service, we provide the following guidelines for our community. These guidelines fall under a common sense philosophy and apply to all user generated content and activity on our services. This is considered a living document that we regularly update based on the evolution of the Twitch community and service. Additional guidelines or specific exceptions may be applicable for certain services or properties under the Twitch Service.
To protect the integrity of our community, as the provider of the service, we at Twitch reserve the right to suspend any account at any time for any conduct that we determine to be inappropriate or harmful. Such actions may include: removal of content, a strike on the account, and/or suspension of account(s). Please refer to this page for more detail: About Suspensions.
You must respect all applicable local, national, and international laws while using our services. Any content or activity featuring, encouraging, offering, or soliciting illegal activity is prohibited.
This includes committing or aiding in the malicious destruction, defacement, or theft of public or another person’s private property without permission on stream.
All suspensions are binding until expiration or removal upon successful appeal. Any attempt to circumvent an account suspension or chat ban by using other accounts, identities, or by appearing on another user’s account will also result in an additional enforcement against your accounts, up to an indefinite suspension.
In addition, it is prohibited to use your channel to knowingly feature or advertise a suspended user. We understand that there may be instances where suspended users may appear on your stream due to circumstances beyond your control, such as through third-party gaming tournaments, but we expect that you make a good faith effort to remove them from your broadcast, mute them, or otherwise limit their interactions with your stream.
Any activity that may endanger your life or lead to your physical harm is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to: suicide threats, intentional physical trauma, illegal use of drugs, illegal or dangerous consumption of alcohol, and dangerous or distracted driving. We do not make exceptions for self destructive behavior performed as a stunt or gag made in jest, or meant to entertain, when the behavior could reasonably be expected to cause physical injury.
Acts and threats of violence will be taken seriously and are considered zero-tolerance violations and all accounts associated with such activities will be indefinitely suspended. This includes, but is not limited to:
Twitch does not allow content that depicts, glorifies, encourages, or supports terrorism, or violent extremist actors or acts. This includes threatening to or encouraging others to commit acts that would result in serious physical harm to groups of people or significant property destruction. You may not display or link terrorist or extremist propaganda, including graphic pictures or footage of terrorist or extremist violence, even for the purposes of denouncing such content.
In situations where a user has lost control of their broadcast due to severe injury, medical emergency, police action, or being targeted with serious violence, we will temporarily remove the channel and associated content.
Hateful conduct and harassment are not allowed on Twitch. Hateful conduct is any content or activity that promotes or encourages discrimination, denigration, harassment, or violence based on the following protected characteristics: race, ethnicity, color, caste, national origin, immigration status, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, serious medical condition, and veteran status. We also provide certain protections for age. Twitch has zero tolerance for hateful conduct, meaning we act on every valid reported instance of hateful conduct. We afford every user equal protections under this policy, regardless of their particular characteristics.
Harassment has many manifestations, including stalking, personal attacks, promotion of physical harm, hostile raids, and malicious false report brigading. Sexual harassment, specifically, can take the form of unwelcome sexual advances and solicitations, sexual objectification, or degrading attacks relating to a person’s perceived sexual practices.
We will take action on all instances of hateful conduct and harassment, with an increasing severity of enforcement when the behavior is targeted, personal, graphic, or repeated/prolonged, incites further abuse, or involves threats of violence or coercion. The most egregious violations may result in an indefinite suspension on the first offense.
Learn more about our hateful conduct and harassment policies and enforcement.
Do not invade the privacy of others. It is prohibited to share content that may reveal private personal information about individuals, or their private property, without permission. This includes but is not limited to:
Content or activity meant to impersonate an individual or organization is prohibited. Any attempts to misrepresent yourself as a member of Twitch representatives is a zero-tolerance violation and will result in indefinite suspension.
Any content or activity that disrupts, interrupts, harms, or otherwise violates the integrity of Twitch services or another user’s experience or devices is prohibited. Such activity includes:
Nudity and sexually explicit content or activities, such as pornography, sexual acts or intercourse, and sexual services, are prohibited.
Content or activities that threaten or promote sexual violence or exploitation are strictly prohibited and may be reported to law enforcement. Child exploitation will be reported to authorities via the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
Sexually suggestive content or activities are also prohibited, although they may be allowed in educational contexts or for pre-approved licensed content, in each case subject to additional restrictions.
Learn more about our sexual content policies and enforcement.
Content that exclusively focuses on extreme or gratuitous gore and violence is prohibited.
You should only share content on your Twitch channel that you own, or that you otherwise have rights to or are authorized to share on Twitch. If you share content on your Twitch channel that you do not own or otherwise do not have the rights to share on Twitch, you may be infringing another person’s intellectual property rights. This includes any third party content included in your content, derivative creations, or performances of others’ copyrighted content. We encourage you to assess your content for adherence to applicable intellectual property laws and the proper application of principles such as fair use, and to secure all appropriate rights needed, before sharing your content on Twitch.
Any unauthorized content you share on Twitch may be subject to a takedown by the rights holder(s) to remove the infringing content from Twitch, and is a violation of our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines. Multiple violations of our policies may lead to a permanent suspension of your account.
Examples of content you should not share on Twitch without permission from the copyright owners or unless otherwise permitted by law include:
Learn more about our policies regarding including music in your Twitch channel.
You are expected to accurately label your content to the best of your ability. When choosing a category or tag, please choose whichever best describes your content. Deliberate or extensive misuse of titles, tags, games/categories, or other metadata are prohibited.
Any activity, such as cheating, hacking, botting, or tampering, that gives the account owner an unfair advantage in an online multiplayer game, is prohibited. This also includes exploiting another broadcaster’s live broadcast in order to harass them in-game, such as stream sniping.
We ask that you respect all publisher/developer-enforced release dates, embargoes, and NDAs by waiting to broadcast these games until everyone else gets to. Unless given prior approval, your channel may be subject to DMCA takedown by a rights holder. Rights holders should report violations in accordance with our DMCA Guidelines. We ask that users refrain from reporting possible violations via the user report tool.