Getting banned on Twitch is fairly common, with many of the site's top streamers accidentally breaking the guidelines for what it considers to be safe content. However, the recent waves of bans haven't been via Twitch, but the video game popularly played on the channel Just Dance, and the issue, which was of no fault of the streamers, all seemingly drew back the same issue.
Amouranth was one of the Twitch streamers affected by the Just Dance bans, and she tweeted out at the developer Ubisoft to resolve the issue. Normally, Amouranth is involved in Twitch bans because of sexually explicit content that crosses the lines of the site's Terms of Service. But in this instance, when she was banned by Just Dance itself, it was not because of risque content from her or any other streamers but rather because of a hacking incident.
Just Dance Bans and Ubisoft's Data Breach
Just Dance is a video game where players do that—just dance. However, unlike the classic arcade game series Dance Dance Revolution, Just Dance has users copy a series of dance moves that appear on the screen and are scored based on their accuracy using either a camera or controllers. Some Twitch streamers have turned learning the songs into formidable content, but the recent bans almost resulted in many users temporarily losing their high scores since the newest Just Dance released back in November.
Amouranth, along with other streamers both big and small, found herself banned from the game after her account was hacked, the second account of hers to be broken into just this year only a few days into it. The other instance was when her Discord got hacked into, resulting in several of her fans getting banned from her server. In the case of Just Dance, however, Amouranth's account was hacked into and her username changed to "twitch sl*t," and she was slapped with a ban from Just Dance 2022's online mode shortly after.
And she wasn't the only Twitch streamer or Just Dance player to get banned for a hacked account. YouTube and Twitch Partner LittleSiha, who plays an array of titles from Resident Evil to Mass Effect to Animal Crossing: New Horizons, but she sees decent numbers doing streams of Just Dance 2022. LittleSiha suddenly tweeted that she couldn't get into Just Dance online on January 3, and a stream indicates that she wasn't fully aware of the reason for the ban aside from a security breach. However, many regular users and non-streamers also found that their usernames had been changed to something inappropriate after being hacked. LittleSiha was banned at least twice in separate incidents, and she went on to explain Just Dance's notorious reputation for being "easy to hack."
These hacked accounts occurred following a data breach at Ubisoft in the late days of December 2021 that specifically targeted Just Dance players and their personal information. The data breach exposed identifiers such as GamerTags, profile IDs, and device IDs as well as recordings of Just Dance sessions that were meant to be shared publicly such as via social media. While most of this information is already publicly available, it's obviously allotted hackers access.
Shortly after, of course, Ubisoft was hard at work to resolve the issue and restore the accounts that were banned. After some maintenance, most users seem to have had the issue resolved, but unfortunately for others, the problem still seems to be ongoing. At least, according to various Twitter users.