According to The Verge, TwitchCop is a global emote that was added to the platform by fan vote in 2017; according to Twitch, this was to "prevent abuse."

"To prevent abuse, we have made the decision to proactively remove the TwitchCop emote," a Twitch spokesperson said, adding that "we are constantly evaluating our policies to ensure we address new behaviors and expressions on our platform. We are constantly evaluating our policies to ensure that we address new behavior and expression on our platform."

The emote can no longer be seen on twitchemotes.com, but is still available in a cached version. The person in charge also confirmed that no other emotes have been removed.

Twitch emotes are generally innocuous images used by viewers to react to a live stream, but they can also be used for more nefarious purposes: the 2018 Twitch and KFC deal began to exploit the chicken bucket emote, which contained racist and went sideways. That same month, former Dallas Fuel player Felix "xQc" Lengel was fired from the team for using Trihard's emote in a "racist and derogatory manner. "The Trihard emote is simply an image of streamer Trihex, but some Twitch viewers have been concerned that black people adopted the habit of spamming this emote whenever it appeared on the stream.

Twitch has not disclosed why the emote was removed or whether it will be reinstated in the future, but the move comes in the wake of the May 25 killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, a case of police violence and racial This comes amid ongoing protests against discrimination. Earlier this week, Twitch also pledged to "make lasting change" to support black streamers and fight racism, and provided links to the Minnesota Freedom Fund and other related resources.