Twitch has previously faced legal action after being sued by James “PhantomL0rd” Varga and Herschel “Dr Disrespect” Beahm after they were banned from the site. Twitch and Dr Disrespect reached an out-of-court settlement for an unknown sum, but Twitch was ordered to pay $20,000 in damages in James Varga’s complaint. This is, however, a totally different position, and not simply because the Russian government requires substantially more money.
Twitch has not issued an official comment in response to the court verdict, and it is unclear how the streaming company will react. Russia’s media restrictions make truthful reporting on the crisis almost impossible. This begs the issue of whether Twitch will impose stronger content controls in order to comply with Russian legislation. However, given that Twitch ceased paying Russian broadcasters in March, it is no surprise that the platform would refuse to comply.
