China is saying nah to Twitch, Amazon's wildly popular livestreaming platform.
The service, according to a Friday CNN report, has "been blocked" in the country after recently growing to become the third most popular app in the region's iOS shop. Now, Twitch is "no longer accessible" and has seemingly been removed from China's App Store. A Twitch spokesperson confirmed the block, though Chinese officials have not spoken publicly on the matter.
Other entities previously affected by China’s so-called "Great Firewall" include Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. China has also previously hit PUBG with a ban for purported "mental health" reasons and, in December, the Steam community feature ran into a similar hurdle of its own.
Despite the unstoppable growth of gaming's global popularity, China just last month announced its plans to implement a stricter process of approval for new online games and the amount of time children are allowed to spend playing them. The announcement was followed by a stock drop for tech company Tencent, who's had issues with regulators in China before. "This is in line with China's policy of putting a stronger clamp on gaming," Kevin Leung, a Haitong International Securities executive director of investment strategy, told CNBC last month.
Back here in the States, Twitch remains one of the most popular sites, with 2017 traffic stats placing it in direct competition with increasingly outdated television networks like CNN and MSNBC.
The annual TwitchCon, held at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center, kicks off Oct. 26 and will feature panel discussions, an expo floor, a cosplay contest, and much more.
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