Ninja Understandably Upset That His Old Twitch Channel Was Promoting A Porn Stream [Update]

Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, who recently left his 14 million-follower Twitch account behind to go and stream on rival platform Mixer, has issued a statement labelled “disgusted and so sorry” today after that now-dormant account—which he no longer operates—was promoting streams from other users, including one broadcasting pornography.

Ninja obviously has no control over that Twitch landing page now, since he’s left the service for good, and is dismayed in this video below that the page is showcasing other streamer’s content.

While stating that his split from Twitch had to this point been handled professionally, he says the promotion of a porn stream to a still-sizeable audience—not everyone will have got the news that he’s moved platforms—is crossing “the line”, leading Ninja to begin attempts to get his entire page taken down, “or at least not promote other streamers and other channels”.

Here’s an example of how Twitch began handling Ninja’s departure last week, using a Mario joke to promote other Fortnite streamers active on the platform (presumably based on whichever streams were trending playing Fortnite):

Here, though, is how that same page looked earlier today, with the top-trending clip being some straight-up porn:

At time of posting the Mario joke has been removed and Ninja’s page is now only displaying old videos of his previous streams, with no promotion of any other channel’s work.

Update: 8/12/19, 10:30 a.m. ET: “I apologize want to apologize directly to @ninja that this happened,” Emmett Shear, Twitch’s CEO, said on Twitter last night. “It wasn’t our intent, but it should not have happened. No excuses.”

Shear said the company had been experimenting with how recommended content was displayed across Twitch when the pornographic stream appeared on Blevins’ page. Shear added that the account behind the stream has been permanently banned and that channel recommendations have been suspended “while we investigate how this content came to be promoted.”