It might be an understatement to say that popular Minecraft YouTuber and streamer George “GeorgeNotFound’’ Davidson had a weird weekend. Within two days, he got banned from Twitch, possibly un-banned, definitely banned again, and unbanned (again?). Why? “Harassment via username,” according to Twitch. Problem is, the only person he could have possibly been harassing was himself.
On March 13, Davidson’s alternate Twitch account, “ThisIsNotGeorgeNotFound,” got indefinitely suspended for the first time. While his main account was still technically active, it was effectively an across-the-board ban, as streaming on another account would have counted as ban evasion according to Twitch’s rules. The justification for the ban, according to a Twitch email that Davidson posted to Twitter, was “using an inappropriate username.”
“Based on a review of your activity or content, we have issued a Community Guidelines strike on your account,” reads Twitch’s email to Davidson. “Due to the severe nature of this violation, or the fact that you’ve incurred multiple violations, your access to Twitch services is indefinitely restricted.”
“My name is too inappropriate,” Davidson sarcastically tweeted. “Sorry guys I messed up.”
Davidson addressed the situation again on March 14 to say that he had been banned… again. It does not seem like it should be technically possible for a streamer to be banned a second time without having been un-banned at some point, but it’s difficult to say what exactly happened in the intervening period. (Kotaku reached out to Davidson and Twitch for more information, but neither replied).
The new, different ban email from Twitch accused him of “harassment via username” and once again informed him that the suspension was indefinite — aka, a ban. This one also further elaborated on what exactly he might have done, without telling him exactly what he definitely did. Examples included “having a username that explicitly insults another user,” “having a username that threatens negative action towards another user,” and “having a username that promotes self-harm in conjunction with malicious chat activity, such as telling another user to kill themselves.”
ThisIsNotGeorgeNotFound doesn’t really do any of those things, but if you were a Twitch moderator who didn’t know it was Davidson’s alternate account, you could come to the mistaken conclusion that somebody was trying to harass him by way of impersonation. Granted, Davidson’s alternate account has over 300,000 followers — a suspiciously large number for a supposed fake. This also doesn’t explain why Twitch bonked his account with the banhammer twice. Twitch is a company where left hand and right hand have a way of just missing each other in the hallway, so anything is possible. For now, though, nothing is certain.
Later on March 14, Davidson’s alternate account got unbanned.
“I’M UNBANNED AHAHAHAHAHAHA,” he wrote on Twitter.
24 hours later, he seems to be in the clear, but he also seemed to be in the clear before getting banned twice in one weekend. So I guess we’ll see!
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