Off-Service Conduct Policy
Twitch is committed to facilitating vibrant and dynamic communities, which can only happen if our users feel secure and protected. In addition to our off-service Hateful Conduct & Harassment policy, we believe that the occurrence of severe offenses committed by Twitch users that may take place entirely off-service can create a substantial safety risk to the Twitch community. As a result, we will issue enforcements against the relevant accounts, up to an indefinite suspension on the first offense for some behaviors, which can take place offline or on other internet services, including:

Deadly violence and violent extremism
Terrorist activities or recruiting
Explicit and/or credible threats of mass violence (i.e. threats against a group of people, event, or location where people would gather).
Leadership or membership in a known hate group
Carrying out or deliberately acting as an accomplice to non-consensual sexual activities and/or sexual assault
Sexual exploitation of children, such as child grooming and solicitation/distribution of underage sexual materials
Actions that would directly and explicitly compromise the physical safety of the Twitch community
Explicit and/or credible threats against Twitch, including Twitch staff
We work to keep Twitch spaces safe and inclusive, both to stream and create content, and also for our communities to meet in-person. Individuals who have engaged in the severe forms of abuse listed above we believe are more likely to engage in behaviors on Twitch in violation of our Community Guidelines, or would create overt safety risks for our communities. As a consequence, we will apply these standards even if the target of these behaviors is not a Twitch user, or the person engaging in abuse was not a Twitch user at the time they committed a severe offense. Persons who engage in these forms of severe abuse off-service are also prohibited from subsequently registering Twitch accounts, and attempting to do so will lead to the account’s termination.

We also recognize that toxicity and abuse can spread to Twitch from outside our services in a way that is detrimental to our community. To mitigate this harm, we will take reported off-service context into account when evaluating violations of any of our policies that occur on Twitch. If we are able to verify reports of off-service statements or behaviors that relate to an incident on Twitch, we will use this evidence to support and inform our enforcement decisions.

Because we have less context around behaviors that occur outside of Twitch, we generally require that evidence of these activities is verifiable before we will take action. In most cases, this includes direct links to public posts or content directly uploaded by the infringing user. Screenshots and other content from third-parties that may be edited, doctored, or falsified are generally not considered to be sufficient unless they are supported by other verifiable evidence or confirmed by our third party investigator as authentic. Additionally, we will consider law enforcement action(s) as an input when assessing the credibility of accusations and evidence.

Twitch will leverage third-party legal experts to assist in investigating severe offenses that occur outside of the Twitch services when needed. Users can contact the Twitch Off-Service Investigations Team to directly report cases of any abhorrent and impactful off-service abuses listed above. These reports go directly to our global team responsible for investigating allegations of severe off-service offenses, and are handled with complete confidentiality.

Limitations in Acting on Off-Service Behaviors
Twitch has established this policy primarily to protect the safety of our users. Because of this, persons who have carried out severe offenses and create a safety risk will be prohibited from using our services. However, in cases where these behaviors have occurred in the distant past, users have gone through a trusted rehabilitation process, such as legally mandated time served in a correctional facility, and our investigative process determines that there is no evidence to suggest that the user would cause any clear and present danger to the community, we may decline to take action against a user or unsuspend their account based on an appeal. For particularly egregious offenses that present a physical safety risk to the community, these suspensions will not be eligible for appeal, no matter how much time has elapsed.