Twitch gave Will Neff his third ban, but what happened?

Will Neff celebrated his third ban on Twitch with an amusing incident, but what exactly happened?

Bans typically come from controversial actions, such as N3on’s recent incident at TwitchCon. Twitch isn’t shy about handing out bans, with reasons ranging from the mundane to the potentially illegal. However, sometimes bans come from a streamer committing too hard to the bit.

Will Neff joined OTK in early 2024 and is a beloved variety streamer with a known passion for films. Before Twitch axed the Watch Party feature, Neff regularly held movie nights with fans. Still, the spirit of film love lived on through his streams, though the love may have cost Neff something with Twitch.

Why did Will Neff get banned on Twitch for a third time? 

Twitch banned Will Neff for streaming The Shawshank Redemption for a film course. The film class, in reality, is a casual affair between Will Neff and fans to talk about filmmaking. Sometime during the stream, Neff began to watch The Shawshank Redemption on YouTube. Soon enough, he was hit with a DMCA live on stream resulting in a temporary ban.

Notably, Félix “xQc” Lengyel was almost banned by Kick in 2023 for live-streaming The Dark Knight, showcasing how seriously every straeming platform took DMCA issues.

Neff later clarified the ban would only last 48 hours on social media. He took full responsibility for the action and promised to do better in the future. Neff himself posted a gif of the character Andy Dufresne happily standing up. Others compared Neff’s ban to Dufresne’s imprisonment, and many jokes about holes were made. But not every fan was laughing.

Some pointed fingers at certain chatters who had been toxic throughout the stream and might even have encouraged the DMCA attention and the resulting ban. Others discussed the legitimacy of the DMCA threat, or posed that the video had been uploaded as bait for Will Neff that might result in a Twitch ban.

Others claim the copy of The Shawshank Redemption that Neff watched was just a random upload made by an unaffiliated YouTube user. Caroline Kwan supported the idea that the DMCA was fake on her own stream. Regardless of the reasons behind it all, Neff won’t have to wait 28 years for freedom like Andy Dufresne did.