The U.S. Army Returning to Twitch, Lifting Suspensions

The United States Army may have collected a win when Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tried to pass a bill banning them from using streaming platforms such as Twitch for recruiting, but they have a long way to go in repairing their image among gamers and Twitch streamers as they will be returning to Twitch following a month away.

According to a statement emailed to Kotaku, the esports team is making it’s way back to Twitch and unbanning users, for now.

“The U.S. Army Esports Team is reinstating access for accounts previously banned for harassing and degrading behavior on its Twitch stream,” reads the statement. “The team is reviewing and clarifying its policies and procedures for the stream and will provide all who have been banned the opportunity to participate in the space as long as they follow the team’s guidelines.”

The U.S. Army is clearly sticking to their guns that the aforementioned “harassing and degrading behavior” were valid claims, when in actuality it was viewers asking about the Army’s history of war crimes. Regardless of their position, legal organizations like the ACLU and the Knight First Amendment Institute claim that the bans were violations of free speech laws seeing how the Army is an extension of the United States government.

We will see how things play out this time, but it doesn’t seem like the channel’s issues will be going away anytime soon.