About Account Enforcements and Chat Bans

## ACCOUNT SUSPENSIONS & WARNINGS

Enforcements are issued against accounts that violate our Terms of Service and/or Community Guidelines.

We take a number of factors into consideration when we review reports of violations, including the intent and context, the potential harm to the community, legal obligations and others.

Depending on the nature of the violation, we take a range of actions including a warning, a temporary suspension, and for more serious offenses, an indefinite suspension.

### WARNINGS

A warning is a courtesy notice for some violations. We may also remove content associated with the violation. Repeating a violation you have already been warned for, or committing a similar violation, will result in a suspension.

### Restrictions:

If your account is suspended, you may not access or use Twitch services, including:

* Watching streams
* Broadcasting
* Chatting
* Creating other accounts
* Appearing/participating in a third party channel

### Temporary suspension:

Temporary suspensions range from one to 30 days. After the suspension is complete, you will be able to use our services once again. We keep a record of past violations, and multiple suspensions over time can lead to an indefinite suspension.

### Indefinite suspension

For the most serious offenses, we will immediately and indefinitely suspend your account with no opportunity to appeal.

**Note on subscriptions:** If you receive a suspension of 30 days or longer, any subscriptions you may have will not renew. You may reactivate them when your account is reinstated.

**Note on bot accounts:** While we welcome bots that add new features to Twitch chat and Whispers, bot accounts that spam unwanted messages will be banned indefinitely. Bots that exceed messaging rate limits will automatically be blocked from sending more messages. To ensure your bot is not banned, please visit this link to our developer documentation to learn about message and command rate limits and how to register your bot.

**Note on follows:** After the suspension is complete, expect follows to be lower and recover them within the following hours.

**Note on participation on streams:** If a banned user appears in a third party channel while being suspended, this could cause the ban of the channel they appear in.

## APPEALING AN ACCOUNT ENFORCEMENT

If you think that you did not violate our Community Guidelines, you may appeal the enforcement on your account. In order to appeal, you must contact us at help.twitch.tv. Appeals sent via any other means will **not** be considered.

1. Before you fill out the form, click **Login** at the top of the page or on the form to login to with the Twitch account you wish to appeal an enforcement on (even if the account is currently suspended), and click on **Contact Support**
2. Select **Account/Login Issues** > **Suspension or Warning** from the drop down menu. Appeals sent via other support options may result in a delayed response or no response.
3. In your appeal, include the reason you believe you were suspended incorrectly.
4. After your appeal has been submitted you will receive an auto-response to the email registered to your Twitch account acknowledging receipt of your appeal.
5. Once your appeal has been reviewed, we will reply notifying you of the status of your appeal and account(s). This will complete the appeal process.

Appeals are reviewed in the order they are received and we do not guarantee enforcements will be overturned. Only the owner of the account in question may appeal an account suspension or warning, and frivolous appeals or appeals submitted to inquire on the status or request unsuspension of an account that you do not own will not be considered. Abusing or spamming the appeals process may lead to additional penalties, or revoking of appeal privileges.

**Note on proxies:** If you are connecting from an open proxy, it may show you that you have been blocked from using Twitch. Many open proxies have been blocked due to users abusing our Terms of Service from these proxies. We will not unblock these proxies from our site. We recommend you do not use these services to connect to Twitch services.

## ACCOUNT ENFORCEMENTS DUE TO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT

We will respond to clear and complete notices of alleged copyright infringement. Our copyright procedures are set forth in the DMCA Guidelines. Individual copyright violations will result in immediate removal of the content, temporary suspension (where the claim is directed at a live stream), and receipt of a copyright infringement strike. Repeat copyright violations will result in an indefinite suspension of your account.

Copyright infringement strikes may be reversed upon receipt of valid counter-notification. Details on what must be contained in a valid counter-notification are also contained in the DMCA Guidelines.

## APPEALING A CHANNEL-SPECIFIC BAN

If you have been banned from chatting in a specific channel, you must contact either the channel owner or an appointed moderator for that channel if you wish to appeal the ban. Channel owners and moderators are free to ban anyone from their channel, regardless of the reason. Twitch Staff will not assist in reversing channel-specific bans. Please note that while you are welcome to appeal a channel ban, misuse of Whispers or other features to attack or harass anyone due to receipt of a channel ban (or any other reason) will lead to suspension of your account(s).