A Twitch Partner and VRChat personality, MurderCrumpet, received a ban during a recent live stream. The ban occurred on the evening of March 3, when Twitch dropped the ban hammer on MurderCrumpet during his live broadcast to the shock of the streamer and his viewers.Recently, Twitch has been quite merciless in its administration of bans across the site. From the smaller channels to major content creators such as JustAMinx, temporary bans ranging from one day to as many as several weeks have been served throughout 2023. But in the case of MurderCrumpet, whether the punishment suits the violation or not is questionable. For his first offense in the three years he has been on the Amazon-owned platform, MurderCrumpet was handed a seven-day ban. Though Twitch left a generic screen that rendered MurderCrumpet's page temporarily unavailable until next week, fans of the VRChat streamer took to social media to question the ban. After the ban hammer was lowered, MurderCrumpet took to his Twitter to apologize for the violation and took responsibility for his on-air conduct. According to the replies, MurderCrumpet engaged in lewd conduct in VRChat, with his avatar appearing in compromising positions. Though acts of sexual behavior are a clear violation of Twitch's terms of service, MurderCrumpet's fans pointed out that other streamers have received shorter bans for similar violations and criticized the site for putting VRChat personalities under a microscope.
At the time of writing, the streamer has yet to comment further following the ban. MurderCrumpet considers himself a streamer that focuses on constant content creation, so whether he will heed his fans' comments and take time to rest during his time off of Twitch remains to be seen. Though VRChat has seen its share of controversies through the years, the free-to-play virtual reality experience has become a popular spot for content creators and fans alike to interact. While MurderCrumpet is careful about who and what he allows on his broadcasts, only time will tell how the ban will change things going forward.
However, MurderCrumpet will return to streaming once his sentence has been served. With the rise of Kick as a competitive platform that promises to offer a better payout and other features such as clips, it remains to be seen what Twitch will do for its terms of service and ban policies in the near future.