Streamers accuse Twitch of demonetizing channels for representing their countries

Multiple Twitch streamers are accusing the site of demonetizing their channels despite running ads, all because they represent the countries they’re from.

Twitch has been criticized in recent weeks for its handling of bans, the content allowed on the site, and concerns about antisemitism from top streamers – and now, the platform is facing a new controversy.

On November 12, FaZe Kaysan revealed that he hadn’t received any payment from ad money for the whole month of November despite running advertisements on his broadcasts.

After contacting a friend at Twitch and explaining the situation, she did some digging and told him that he had been demonetized, even though he hadn’t done anything to violate Twitch’s Community Guidelines.

According to Kaysan, the issue was caused by his having ‘Iran’ as a tag on his stream while he played Call of Duty.

“As you guys know, I’m Iranian and I’ve had that same tag for about two years,” he explained. “I don’t talk about politics, I don’t come on here and speak about politics. I’m actually very curious to know if streamers like Hasan have been demonetized for talking about politics.”

In early November, Twitch added a new feature that lets users hide streams with political content. In its announcement, the purple platform warned, “certain brands won’t want to run their ads alongside streams with specific types of Content Classification Labels applied.”

Kaysan said he didn’t want to blame Twitch completely because he doesn’t know the facts, but added that his Twitch contact told him that advertisers had been “steering away” from politics because of the US election and his Iran tag may have caused issues there.

The streamer did, however, call out Twitch for not giving him a heads-up about the situation, because for the whole month, he had no idea he wouldn’t be getting paid.

Interestingly, Kaysan wasn’t the only one to be suddenly demonetized without warning, as fellow streamer BigEx claimed he didn’t make any money because he had Venezuela as a tag.

“I just found out I was demonetized on Twitch for representing my country Venezuela, for the past month I didn’t make a single penny on ads,” he commented. “This is absurd. I’m missing thousands of dollars.”

Dexerto has reached out to Twitch for comment.

Now that the election is finally over, it’s unclear if this tag problem will be resolved, but the FaZe member isn’t taking any chances and says he’ll begrudgingly remove the tag to make money.

“It almost feels like I’m selling out. I’m Iranian. I’m proud to be Iranian,” he said.