The suspension comes amid a rising wave of bans and suspensions on the platform, as the Amazon-owned video game livestreaming service seeks to crack down on the wave of harassment that has pervaded its users.
However, unlike these other bans, Trump's account was only given a temporary suspension, though the length of the suspension is still unknown.
“Hateful conduct is not allowed on Twitch. In line with our policies, President Trump’s channel has been issued a temporary suspension from Twitch for comments made on stream, and the offending content has been removed,” a Twitch spokesman said in a statement, according to Gamespot.
The statement gave examples of hate speech used in some of Trump's livestreams, citing both a 2016 rally that was recently rebroadcast, and the recent campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Both examples could be perceived as racist and hateful against Mexicans.
The example from the 2016 rally was the now-infamous quote regarding Mexican immigrants. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems to us,” Trump said at the time.“They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we’re getting. And it only makes common sense – it only makes common sense. They’re sending us not the right people.”
At the more recent Tulsa rally, Trump stated: “Hey, it’s one o’clock in the morning and a very tough – I’ve used the word on occasion – hombre, a very tough hombre is breaking into the window of a young woman whose husband is away as a traveling salesman or whatever he may do. And you call 911 and they say, 'I’m sorry, this number’s no longer working.' By the way, you have many cases like that – many, many, many. Whether it’s a young woman, an old woman, a young man or an old man and you’re sleeping.”
Trump started his account in October 2019 as part of his planning for the 2020 presidential elections. It was only days later that the site was met with controversy when the perpetrator behind the Halle synagogue shooting livestreamed his attack on the platform.
The move to suspend Trump's account coincided with Reddit, another popular social media platform, banning the pro-Trump subreddit r/the_donald, which was among the many racist and hateful subreddits that were banned because many Reddit users protested the platform's refusal to ban racist content.
The moves by Twitch and Reddit are likely to provoke further anger from the Trump administration, which has already urged cracking down on social media platforms, sparked when Twitter hit one of Trump's tweets with a fact-check.
In May, Trump signed an executive order urging the FTC to take action against social media platforms that limit the free speech of users, after Twitter hid another one of his tweets, Engadget reported.