How-To

How to Ban Words on Twitch

By Ben Stockton

Published April 19, 2023

Bad words on Twitch can derail your chat (and risk a ban). To block them, follow this guide.

Do you want to keep your Twitch chat clean and friendly? If so, you need to know how to ban words on Twitch.

Banning words in Twitch means blocking certain terms and phrases from appearing in your chat. This can help you prevent spam, harassment, hate speech, spoilers, and other unwanted messages in your channel. Banning words can also protect you and your viewers from getting banned by Twitch for using prohibited language.

We’ll show you why you’d want to ban words on Twitch and how it’s done below.

Why You’d Want to Ban Words on Twitch

There are a lot of good reasons why you might want to consider banning words on Twitch. Here are some of them:

• Prevent spam: Some users may try to spam your chat with repeated messages, links, emojis, or other irrelevant content. This can be annoying and distracting for you and your viewers. Banning words can help you filter out these spam messages and keep your chat focused on your stream.
• Stop harassment: Some users may try to harass you or other viewers with insults, threats, personal attacks, or other abusive languages. This can be hurtful and harmful to your mental health and safety. Banning words can help you block these harassing messages and create a safe and supportive environment for your community.
• Prevent hate speech: Some users may try to spread hate speech based on race, gender, sexuality, religion, or other identity factors. This can be offensive and hateful for you and your viewers. Banning words can help you stop these hateful messages and promote a respectful and inclusive culture for your channel.
• Avoid spoilers: Some users may try to spoil the plot or outcome of a game, movie, show, or other media that you or your viewers are interested in. This can ruin the fun and excitement for you and your viewers. Banning words can help you avoid these spoiler messages and preserve the suspense and enjoyment of your stream.
• Avoid the risk of being banned yourself: Twitch has a list of prohibited conduct that includes using hateful, sexual, violent, or illegal content or using other inappropriate languages on their platform. If you or your viewers use any of these prohibited terms or phrases on your chat, you may get banned by Twitch temporarily or permanently. Banning words can help you comply with Twitch’s terms of service and avoid getting banned yourself.

How to Ban Words on Twitch

There are different methods for banning words on Twitch, depending on your platform.

Using Your Web Browser (on a PC and Mac)

The easiest way to ban words in Twitch using a web browser is through the creator dashboard. This is the best method for PC and Mac users to follow.

To ban words on Twitch on a PC or Mac:

1. Log onto the Twitch website with your account and sign in.
2. Select your profile picture in the top-right corner.
3. Next, select Creator Dashboard.
   
4. In the left side menu of the Creator Dashboard page, click Settings.
5. Next, press Moderation.
   
6. Under AutoMod controls, click Blocked terms and phrases.
   
7. Type any word or phrase you want to ban in the provided box.
8. Choose Public (to hide it from everyone) or Private (to hide it only from non-moderators).
9. Click Add to confirm.
   

You can also add multiple words or phrases at once by separating them with commas.

Using the Mobile App (iPhone, iPad, and Android)

The Twitch mobile app doesn’t have the option to ban words directly. However, you can access the Twitch creator dashboard through a web browser to bank words instead.

To ban words on Twitch using the mobile app:

1. Open the Twitch website on your Android, iPhone, or iPad device and sign in.
2. Tap on your profile picture in the top-left corner.
3. Next, select Creator Dashboard.
   
4. In the Creator Dashboard, tap Settings > Moderation.
5. Tap Blocked terms and phrases.
   
6. Type any word or phrase you want to ban in the box provided, or separate multiple words with commas.
7. Choose Public (to hide it from everyone) or Private (to hide it only from non-moderators).
8. Tap Add to confirm.

Repeat these steps to ban other words.

Tips for Banning Words on Twitch

Here are some other things you should know about banning words on Twitch:

• Use wildcards: You can use asterisks (*) as wildcards to ban any word or phrase that contains a certain letter or sequence. For example, if you ban uck, it will block any word that has uck in it, such as duck, luck, truck, etc.
• Use regular expressions: You can use regular expressions (regex) to ban words or phrases that match a certain pattern. For example, if you ban \b[a-z]*\b, it will block any single word that consists of lowercase letters only. Regex is a powerful tool but also complex and tricky to use, so you may need to research this further.
• You can use AutoMod: AutoMod is a feature that automatically moderates your chat based on four levels of filtering: level 0 (no filtering), level 1 (light filtering), level 2 (medium filtering), and level 3 (heavy filtering). AutoMod can detect and block messages that contain profanity, sexual content, harassment, discrimination, spam, and other inappropriate languages. You can enable AutoMod in your creator dashboard.
• Use moderators: Moderators are trusted users managing your chat. They can delete messages, timeout users, ban users, unban users, and add or remove banned words for your channel. You can assign moderators by typing /mod username in your chat. You can also remove moderators by typing /unmod username.

Managing Bad Behavior on Twitch

If you want to keep your Twitch chat clean and friendly, you’ll need to use the steps above to ban words on Twitch. This should help you to prevent spam, harassment, hate speech, spoilers, and other inappropriate behavior.

Need to warn a user of their behavior? You can always send a whisper on Twitch to warn them in private before you ban them. You can also unfollow any user in your friend’s list who’s causing you trouble.

Are you watching other streams, but you’re sick of the ads? You can block Twitch ads in a few different ways.