Shadowbanning Of VPN Users

Using VPN while watching a Twitch stream will result in ‘Shadowbanning’ meaning that there’s a good chance nobody is seeing your chat.

The streaming platform Twitch has a problem with users accessing a stream while connected to a VPN thinking that the user using one is quietly taking action against them.

Many Twitch users are confused and reported that their chat messages aren’t appearing and said that they can only see their own messages chat window but nobody else can. Some thought that they were just being ignored. The viewers confirmed that connecting to a VPN was the main reason why their messages were not read by others until one of the users tried to view a twitch stream from another device that was not connected to a VPN. It became clear to the users that doing so would result in you being shadowbanned by twitch.

A thread on Reddit by Bluesteain suggested that anyone who is connected to a VPN would partially block a user’s content without them knowing that they were being blocked. The term used is Shadowbanning and many have already reported that their chat comments are not appearing and suggesting Twitch is indeed blocking VPN users.

Twitch implemented shadowbanning clearly for security reasons but many think that it’s unfair to other users who also just want to be secured by using VPN. Twitch still has had no comment regarding the issue.