Alisha “Alisha12287” Heart has seen her Twitch ban lifted after a cattery suspected of being a kitten mill sent a lawyer-drafted letter demanding that she be banned from the popular streaming platform.
The event started after Alisha became aware of an account on Twitch called Adorable Stars that livestreamed kittens playing in a room. She then found out that the channel was supposedly owned by cat breeder who practiced unethical breeding in order to make money off of sick kittens. Alisha claimed that the USDA was investigating the business due to it allegedly being a kitten mill. To further bring to light the issue, she called for Twitch to investigate the channel on a livestream on Twitch, and she further raised the issue on Twitter.
Kitten mills are breeding locations where purebred cats and kittens live in poor conditions and are often bred too young or too often, resulting in cats that have various medical and genetic defects.
Not long after, Alisha received a 14-day ban on Twitch. Steven “Destiny” Bonnell, a popular streamer with a large following on Twitch, mentioned the ban on his stream. Destiny said that her Twitch channel was banned because the owners of the cattery heard her accusations, and a lawyer had sent over legal threats that resulted in her ban. Destiny’s clip was posted to Reddit, where it gained over 57,000 upvotes and became highly visible. Many started spamming Twitch with demands to unban Alisha. Those demands were initially met with silence.
Alisha responded to the ban, explaining on a YouTube video that she understood why Twitch decided to ban her. She had no exact explanation for why Twitch decided to ban her. “Harassment” was the reason that Twitch gave, but they declined to give any further explanation beyond that. According to Alisha, a “specific business” boasted about being the reason for her ban, which led viewers to believe that she was referring to Adorable Stars.
After the ban, Alisha decided to hold a charity stream for an animal welfare organization in which she raised almost $3,000. The Adorable Stars Twitch channel remains unbanned, but the channel hasn’t been live since October 18, which is also the day that Alisha released her statement about the incident.
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