Twitch removes Hispanic Heritage Emotes after community backlash

Twitch is no stranger to community backlash. This time the company was heavily criticized for an emote they introduced for their “Hispanic Heritage Month”.

Starting from September 15 to October 15 Twitch decided to highlight Hispanic streamers on their frontpage to “uplift” the international voices of Hispanics in the video game industry.

Shortly after they launched their special page complete with special emotes for the month the streaming platform faced intense criticism. Not only the choice of featured streams (mainly english-speaking channels) but also the emote modifiers sparked outrage from the community.

The now removed Emotes Twitch introduced for their Hispanic Heritage MonthThe now removed Emotes Twitch introduced for their Hispanic Heritage Month
The now removed Emote Modifiers Twitch introduced for their Hispanic Heritage Month

Clearly based on Mexican stereotypes the choice of Emote Modifiers was at least poor in taste if not outright racist and faced a backlash from the larger community.

Within three hours of the incident Twitch removed the emotes as they “missed the mark” and the streaming platform officially apologized for introducing them.

This marks the second time within days that Twitch has come under fire for their decisions after their introduction of mid-roll ads prior.

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Image Credit: Twitch

 

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