Earlier this week, it came to light that Twitch was running ads in blatant opposition to the Amazon warehouse worker unionization effort in Bessemer, Alabama. Streamers, who had no say in whether or not these ads appeared during their broadcasts, were outraged. Today, Twitch has removed the ads, saying that they never should have run in the first place.
Despite being owned by Amazon, Twitch said in a statement to
Kotaku that its parent company’s union-busting ads have no place on the streaming platform.
“Twitch does not allow political advertising, and these ads should never have been allowed to run on our service,” a Twitch spokesperson said in an email. “We have removed these ads and are evaluating our review processes to ensure that similar content does not run in the future. We are grateful to our community for bringing this to our attention.”
These days, Amazon, not Twitch, is in charge of the bulk of Twitch’s ad network, with Amazon selling the ability to reach Amazon and Twitch users with the same campaign
as a big perk of its advertising program. In this case, however, Twitch has pushed back against an Amazon-orchestrated campaign, citing a policy violation.
The ads depict Amazon employees regurgitating standard anti-union lines: Everything is fine as is, unions do nothing but take people’s money, etc.
According to pro-union publication
More Perfect Union, the ads ran before and during streams watched by viewers in Alabama.
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