Twitch removes hate group from approved charities following backlash

Twitch has removed LGB Alliance from its list of approved charities following backlash from streamers and viewers.

On 7th December, Twitch announced it had added "tens of thousands" of new global charities to its charity tool for streamers. The feature was added in July in a US-only beta, and became available to all partners in August. Twitch and Paypal Giving Fund do not take a cut of donations raised through the charity tool.

"We added tens of thousands more Paypal-vetted charities from the US and dozens of different countries," Twitch stated in its blog announcement. The company came under fire from users when they discovered LGB Alliance, a UK-based hate group opposed to trans rights, was one of the new additions to Twitch's approved charities. The group was controversially granted charity status in April 2021 by the UK government.

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Users were quick to point out the anti-trans policies of LGB Alliance, with many requesting the group be removed from Twitch's list on Twitter. On UserVoice, Twitch's user forum, the most upvoted post was titled "Remove Hate Groups", and called for the platform to remove LGB Alliance. The post received over 16,000 upvotes.

Yesterday, Twitch responded to the post to confirm they had removed the group from its list of approved charities. "Twitch does not allow charities that violate our hateful conduct policies on Twitch, or whose organisation or leadership engage in or promote behaviours that violate our off-service policy," the company wrote in its response. "Inclusion on this list is not an endorsement from Twitch," it continued. "However, we regularly review the list and remove organisation that violate our policies."

Concerns still remain over a number of other organisations approved in Twitch's charity tool, and whether any vetting process was applied to the "tens of thousands" of groups which were added last week. Autism Speaks, a network which was added to the list of approved charities in August, was also highlighted in the upvoted post. Twitch did not remove the group and instead referred users to a statement made on 28th November. "This organisation does not violate our off-service policy," the platform wrote, despite the network's harmful actions towards autistic people, including spreading misinformation on the disability.