Animal rights organization PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) calls for Twitch streamer Alinity to be banned from the live streaming platform. Alinity came under fire last week when footage surfaced of the streamer throwing her cat.
In a post on Twitter, PETA tried to get the attention of the Twitch support team, asking the company to "take a stand for cats" and to ban Alinity from Twitch "immediately." The animal rights organization said that Alinity's use of Twitch to post animal abuse sends "a dangerous message" to her thousands of followers. The video accompanying the clip, which features Alinity seemingly throwing her cat over her head, has more than seven million views on Twitter. The tweet from PETA also has more than 25,000 retweets and more than 100,000 likes.
PETA isn't the only group that thinks that Alinity should be banned from Twitch. There is also a petition calling for Twitch to ban the streamer with more than 27,000 signatures so far. Like PETA, many of the signatories say that Twitch needs to ban Alinity to send a message that this sort of behavior is not okay. Some also say that Alinity should be punished for her behavior so that she stops treating her pets in this way.
Twitch's director of creator development, djWHEAT, has also weighed in on the Alinity animal abuse situation. The Twitch director agreed that Alinity should be banned from the platform. However, djWHEAT doesn't have moderation powers and asked the community not to harass him about the issue and to let the Twitch moderation teams do their jobs.
It's unclear whether those campaigning for Alinity to be banned from Twitch will get what they so feverously want. In a message posted on Discord, Alinity claimed that Twitch has told her that she won't be banned. The streamer also said that Twitch is planning punishments for the people harassing her and sending her hate over the animal abuse issue.
Alinity's claims cannot be verified and it's not yet known when or if Twitch will hand down a decision about the streamer's future on its platform. However, with so many members of the community watching things unfold and with groups like PETA weighing in on it too, Twitch's moderation teams are under pressure.
Source: Twitter - PETA