"Asmon's about to lose half his viewers" - Fans react as Twitch announces feature that can enable streamers to block banned viewers from watching

During the most recent Patch Notes livestream, Twitch provided details about a new feature that would allow streamers to block banned viewers from watching their broadcasts. The update was shared on the r/LivestreamFail subreddit and became a hot topic of conversation. With hundreds of community members chiming in, u/Barialdaralan joked that One True King (OTK) co-founder Zack "Asmongold" would lose "half" of his viewers.

They wrote:

"Asmon's about to love half his viewers."

---

Understanding how Twitch's new feature enables streamers to stop banned viewers from watching their broadcasts

Trevor Fisher, Twitch's senior product manager of community health, made the announcement during the most recent Patch Notes livestream. He provided details about the upcoming feature, stating:

"About the next month, we'll be rolling out a new feature which will let you... as a streamer, you'll have to go to your dashboard to use this. It's not something that we just drop on everybody. But if you do choose to use it, what it will be is - you can choose to have your banned chatters no longer be able to watch the stream."

Explaining how this would work, the Twitch executive added:

"If you ban somebody and they are currently watching, the stream playback will be interrupted for them. So that they immediately lose the ability to view the stream. Then, if you go offline and you stream again, they won't be able to watch your subsequent streams either, until you choose to unban them."

Timestamp: 00:34:55

Aside from banned viewers, if a streamer blocks someone, they will be unable to watch their broadcasts:

"In addition to that, we'll also be including that functionality as just a built-in part of the 'Blocks' feature. So that if you block somebody, they won't be able to watch your streams until you unblock them. There won't be any setting for that part, though. It will just be something that always happens when you block somebody."

---

"I will use my 900 alt accounts to hate-watch Erobb" - Fans react to Twitch's new feature

As mentioned earlier, the announcement has gone viral on the r/LivestreamFail subreddit. Some fans stated that if they are barred from watching a streamer's livestream, they can simply log out or use an internet browser's incognito mode to bypass any restrictions:

Redditor u/thexllela joked that they would use "900 alternate accounts" to "hate-watch" popular Twitch personality Eric "Erobb221":

Meanwhile, one community member argued that if a streamer prevents them from watching their broadcast, they should be able to block the latter from appearing anywhere on the platform:

Here are some more notable reactions:

---

Twitch announced the return of fan-favorite SUBtember during the same Patch Notes livestream. For those unaware, viewers will receive discounts on a content creator's monthly subscription, as well as other benefits.