Twitch has put a stop to a recent promotion on the official Twitch channel for the United States Army eSports, after it was revealed to send users to a recruitment page.
The Nation reported the United States military has begun operating a Twitch channel on behalf of the army in order to promote its participation in eSports and as well as attempt to recruit gamers. The US Army Esports Twitter account has also taken a noticeably relaxed attitude to promotion, with memes and jokes.
Like many Twitch channels, the United States military was offering a giveaway with a link that was posted by a bot every couple of minutes. However the link that was used for the giveaway allegedly took users to a recruitment page for the United States military, without any mention of the promised giveaway on Twitch.
Twitch has since put a stop to the alleged recruitment disguised as promotion. A Twitch spokesperson told Kotaku in an email “Per our Terms of Service, promotions on Twitch must comply with all applicable laws. This promotion did not comply with our Terms, and we have required them to remove it.”
The military has also been criticized for its use of Twitch as a recruitment platform. Currently Twitch requires all registrants to be age thirteen and up, and the platform also boasts being able to reach 80% of male teens in the United States.
Users have also been banned from the channel for asking provocative questions about the military’s recruitment strategies, or for linking the Wikipedia article to war crimes committed by the United States (alleged and otherwise).
The chat is moderated by the Department of Defense. As stated on the Twitch channel’s about section under their user agreement:
EDITING AND DELETIONS: The Department of Defense reserves the right, but undertakes no duty, to review, edit, move or delete any material submitted as a comment to the information provided for display or placed on the social media sites in its sole discretion, without notice. Comments submitted to these sites will be reviewed and a representative sample may be posted on the site or inappropriate comments may be deleted at the sole discretion of the Department of Defense.
Despite the prohibition on promotions, the Twitch channel for USArmyEsports remains active as of this time of writing.
Image: Twitter
