"I don't believe him" - Twitch CEO Dan Clancy says AI does not ban users on the platform, fans voice skepticism

On December 23, 2023, Twitch CEO Dan Clancy appeared as a guest on VRChat content creator Robert "Roflgator's" livestream. A moment from their conversation has garnered attention on social media, during which Dan Clancy stated that platform bans are not handled by artificial intelligence. While admitting that Twitch uses AI for auto-moderation, the 59-year-old said:

"So, first of all for clarity, we don't have AI banning anyone. People think it's AI doing it. It is not AI doing it. So, we do use AI for auto-mod, which has nothing to do with bans. Your moderators see, you know, when auto-mod make suggestions, you can see where sometimes it does a good job, and sometimes it misinterprets and your moderator then can make a decision about which go through."

Dan Clancy's claims became a hot topic of conversation on the r/LivestreamFail subreddit, with several community members voicing skepticism. Redditor u/DiaMat2040 wrote:

"I don't believe him. It's like Blizzard saying they ban people in WoW only after a thorough investigation by a human, but it's obvious that you can just fake mass-report someone to get them banned."

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"The mistakes you see are being made by human beings" - Twitch CEO Dan Clancy on who handles bans on the platform

Comment byu/Villenthessis from discussion inLivestreamFail

The discussion began at the 48-minute mark of the broadcast when Twitch streamer Roflgator mentioned users getting banned from the platform for "out-of-context" comments. He inquired:

"This is a very important one. We've had a lot of issues with the chat AI moderating system. Basically, there's no way for an AI to understand context, right? And, because of this, a lot of people in our community will make a joke with the streamer that doesn't offend the streamer but, you know, out-of-context, (it) can look really bad and have gotten indefinite bans, two-week bans, like, any amount of duration bans."

Claiming that the system was "a little bit flawed," Roflgator continued:

"I feel like this system is a little bit flawed and I think a lot of other people find that very flawed. And, we were wondering if there is any way to improve the system by, maybe, letting, like, the streamer have more of a say in it. Like, let the streamer decide whether or not that was an appropriate thing."

Timestamp: 00:48:35

Dan Clancy responded by claiming that AI systems do not handle suspensions, adding that ban-related mistakes on Twitch are made by humans:

"The mistakes that you see are being made by human beings. It's human error. Interestingly, AI might do better than that... because we think humans are great at figuring out context and all these other things. Actually, sometimes, humans are quite bad at detecting when something is a joke and then they make mistakes."

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Fans react to the Twitch CEO's clarification

As mentioned earlier, Dan Clancy's clarification on who handles Twitch bans was shared on the r/LivestreamFail subreddit. Here's what netizens had to say about it:

Comment byu/Villenthessis from discussion inLivestreamFail

Comment byu/Villenthessis from discussion inLivestreamFail

Comment byu/Villenthessis from discussion inLivestreamFail

Comment byu/Villenthessis from discussion inLivestreamFail

According to Redditor u/oddlyshapedbagel, Dan Clancy's clarification made the situation "kinda worse" because Twitch staff "chooses to ignore context" when issuing suspensions. Meanwhile, another community member was amused to see the platform's CEO collaborate with Roflgator via VRChat.