Trump's Twitch channel was reinstated two weeks after being suspended for violating 'hateful conduct' policies

• President Donald Trump's Twitch account was temporarily suspended for two weeks, but it was reinstated on Monday.
• Twitch had suspended the channel, saying Trump's words violated the company's hateful-conduct rules. It gave two prime examples from Trump campaign rallies: one in 2015, and another in late June in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
• Twitch is the latest social platform to struggle with moderating the US president's speech.

President Donald Trump's Twitch account was reinstated on Monday after a two-week suspension.

The account violated the company's hateful-conduct rules, a Twitch representative said on June 29.

"Hateful conduct is not allowed on Twitch," the statement said. "In line with our policies, President Trump's channel has been issued a temporary suspension from Twitch for comments made on stream, and the offending content has been removed."

Twitch, which is owned by Amazon, gave two examples of "offending conduct" from Trump's campaign speeches. The first came from a rally in 2015.

"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best," he said in a speech announcing his campaign in 2015. "They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

In the other example, from a recent Trump's campaign event on June 20 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the offending content was a fictional anecdote he offered.

"It's 1 o'clock in the morning, and a very tough — I've used the word, on occasion, 'hombre' — a very tough hombre is breaking into the window of a young woman whose husband is away as a traveling salesman or whatever he may do," Trump said. "And you call 911, and they say, 'I'm sorry, this number's no longer working.'"

A review of Trump's Twitch channel on Monday afternoon found no campaign rallies available to watch.

Though Twitch declined to offer an additional comment on what may happen if Trump's reinstated channel violates the same rules in the future, a representative emphasized a previously issued statement: "Like anyone else, politicians on Twitch must adhere to our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines. We do not make exceptions for political or newsworthy content, and will take action on content that violates our rules."

Other major tech companies and social platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, have struggled with how and when to moderate the president's speech. Though Trump has repeatedly tested the limits of Facebook's moderation policies, the company has more or less declined to moderate him.

In a recent example, Trump posted the same message on both Facebook and Twitter in late May.

"When the looting starts, the shooting starts," Trump said, quoting a notoriously harsh Miami police chief who invoked the phrase against Black Americans during the protests for equality in the late 1960s.

Twitter flagged the post for "glorifying violence." To see the tweet, you must click through a warning.

Twitter said the message violated its policies "regarding the glorification of violence based on the historical context of the last line, its connection to violence, and the risk it could inspire similar actions today."

An identical message posted on Trump's Facebook page went untouched; Facebook said it did not violate its community standards. CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly called Trump about the post, and other Facebook executives asked him to tone it down, apparently to no avail. Since that decision, many Facebook employees have spoken out in defiance of the company's inaction.

Reddit recently announced it had banned more than 2,000 subreddits — including r/The_Donald, a pro-Trump forum — that regularly broke its rules about harassment, hate speech, and targeting.

"All communities on Reddit must abide by our content policy in good faith. We banned r/The_Donald because it has not done so, despite every opportunity," CEO Steve Huffman wrote in a post. "The community has consistently hosted and upvoted more rule-breaking content than average ... and its mods have refused to meet our most basic expectations."

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