Well, well, well, how the tabled have turned. Twitch has been giving out bans left and right, deserved or not. We wonder how they feel now that an entire country has given the site a fat ban. That's right, Twitch is currently partially banned within the country of Slovakia.
International law is tough to abide to sometimes. You can just ask Electronic Arts, who lost their FIFA lootboxes in Belgium after a court decision years ago. Perhaps Twitch should go talk to EA, because the site may be cut entirely out of reach within an entire European country.
Twitch Banned in Slovakia
Slovakian site Zive reported on the news first. Twitch is under threat! The streaming site has been blocked by one of the major internet service providers (ISP) in Slovakia - O2, and there's a fair possibility that other ISPs will follow on short notice. Such coarse action must have serious reasoning behind it, and it kind of does.
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Why Is Twitch Banned in Slovakia?
The reason, in very broad terms, is gambling. Once you turn the focus up a bit, you begin to notice how ridiculous the situation is. The suggested trigger for the blocking of Twitch in Slovakia is a breach of the country's gambling laws. Sounds serious enough, until you realise it's a single Slovakian streamer that gambled on stream.
I guess you are reffering to our article?https://t.co/s2LCEcakXpThe cause is yet to be confirmed. The poker streaming in combination with the ability to spend money on the platform is just our guess atm (although based also on our communication with the authority).
— Martin Hodas (@Hody_MH11) June 24, 2021
We can't help but laugh at the irony of Twitch getting banned over no fault of their own and for such a minor offence. If we are being objective though, taking down the site because of a single instance of gambling is overdoing it by a long mile.
It's hard to believe that this situation is going to escalate further, but you never know when someone would decide to apply the law to the letter, so Twitch may be in for a nasty ride on Slovakian soil.
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