Twitch orders end to US Army giveaway promotion on its channel
Alleged controller giveaway reportedly sent users to a recruitment page with no mention of a contest
Twitch has stepped in to stop the US Army's official Twitch channel from promoting a seemingly fake giveaway tied to a recruitment campaign on its channel.
The giveaway gained widespread attention due to a report yesterday by The Nation that shone a light on some of the tactics being used by the US Army to recruit children an teenagers through its Twitch channel and esports team.
According to the report, an automated Twitch chat prompt regularly went off in the channel saying that viewers could win an Xbox Elite Series 2 controller by following a link to a "giveaway."
However, the link went to a recruitment form with no mention of a contest, odds, number of winners, or timing of the drawing.
In response to growing pushback across social media, Kotaku reports that Twitch has instructed the US Army to cease disguising recruitment links as giveaways.
"Per our Terms of Service, promotions on Twitch must comply with all applicable laws," said a Twitch spokesperson to Kotaku. "This promotion did not comply with our Terms, and we have required them to remove it."
The US Army declined to comment on The Nation's reporting of the giveaways, and did not reply to Kotaku's request for comment on Twitch's follow-up.
Recently, the US Army's gaming efforts have come under criticism after it banned numerous users in both the army's Discord and Twitch chats either for asking questions about or pointing out the history of war crimes perpetrated by the US government and military -- such as by sharing the Wikipedia page on the subject.