ExoHydraX accuses Twitch of racism after hot tub stream ban

Twitch streamer and influencer ExoHydraX has accused Twitch of racism after her receiving a three-day ban from the streaming platform.

ExoHydraX started her stream like any other hot tub streamer. She put on a revealing bathing suit and then plopped into her inflatable “hot tub” to hang out with her followers while submerged in the water and playing with pool toys. During the stream, ExoHydraX started “twerking for subs.”

As a result of this act, ExoHydraX received a three-day ban from Twitch. According to a screenshot of the message ExoHydraX received from the Amazon-owned company, the ban was for “sexually suggestive content.” In Twitch’s Terms of Service, this is defined as making explicit gestures towards the breasts or buttocks.

The majority of the streaming community immediately lashed out at Twitch for giving ExoHydraX just a short three-day suspension. Viewers have been attacking Twitch for the past few months over the “hot tub meta,” which has many popular female streamers wearing revealing clothing while streaming from an inflatable hot tub or pool.

For many Twitch users, this suggestive content shouldn’t be allowed on the platform at all. Not only do some people feel that the women are “taking advantage of viewers” for subscriptions, some see it as inappropriate content for a platform centered around gaming. Some of these people have asked for “hot tub streamers” to be removed from Twitch altogether. But Twitch has barely taken any actions towards these streamers to date, even telling viewers to simply “not watch” content that they don’t like.

While a lot of people feel ExoHydraX got off easy, she had a very different opinion on the situation.

Why was ExoHydraX banned from Twitch?

After being banned from Twitch for three days, ExoHydraX turned to Twitter to condemn Twitch for their actions.

“Good luck being black and being a streamer on Twitch,” she said. “I do the exact same content that white girls do but yet I get banned but they don’t? Beyond disappointing. This isn’t okay.”

ExoHydraX’s racism claims immediately riled up the streaming community. But ExoHydraX didn’t back down. She even went on to YouTube to discuss the issue live, claiming YouTube only allows “skinny white bitches” to stream from their hot tubs.

While it’s unclear if ExoHydraX’s accusations have any weight to them, many hot tub streamers have continued to sit in a hot tub wearing their bathing suit without any issues. Kaitlyn “Amouranth” Siragusa, largely credited for starting the “hot tub meta,” has never been suspended for streaming in a revealing bikini for many thousands of viewers.

But ExoHydraX is not the first streamer to receive such a punishment, and previous punishments have been delivered to women of varied ethnicities. Streamer indiefoxx has been banned from Twitch multiple times for her sexually suggestive streams. This includes one for wearing a bathing suit that Twitch employees deemed “see-through,” and thus overly sexual. ImJasmine was also suspended from Twitch after she had a NSFW bikini top malfunction while getting drunk in her hot tub.

It’s unclear what exactly about ExoHydraX’s stream has caused her to receive a three-day ban while other hot tub streams continue. It’s likely that the twerking triggered Twitch’s “explicit gestures towards the buttocks” line in the Terms of Service. Other hot tub streamers simply lounge in their hot tubs without taking any actions that could be defined as explicitly sexual, which may be why they are not suspended. And even if there is any element of truth to ExoHydraX’s claims, Twitch’s unwillingless to speak publicly about its bans and suspensions means that the conversation is unlikely to move any further forward.

Twitch has yet to respond publicly to the accusations.