[1] Kick was founded in 2022 as a competitor to Amazon-owned Twitch, with a focus on looser moderation and higher revenue shares for streamers.

[2][3][4] Kick is mostly known for its low 5% revenue charge, as well as its 2023 deals with multiple streamers including Hikaru Nakamura, Westcol, Vitaly Zdorovetskiy, Nickmercs, Adin Ross, Amouranth, Ice Poseidon, and xQc.

[2][12] A representative of the website said in March 2023 that the platform was in the process of expanding its moderation efforts and that it did not tolerate hate speech or copyright violations.

[2] A New York Times article stated that some of the website's content creators have committed what appeared to be crimes, such as sexual assault and trespassing while streaming.

[2][12][13] Kick has been called "a playground for people to be degenerate" by Kristin Gillespie, a co-founder of the New York-based Rights to Unmute, a not-for-profit organization that seeks to combat racism, bigotry, and harassment in gaming.

[14] Kick streamer Hikaru Nakamura said that the platform was undergoing the same initial journey as other social media websites, including Twitch, which he said was "very much the Wild West" when it started.

[13] Kick CEO Ed Craven stated in an interview that "people are realizing [that] the more controversial they are, the more shock factor involved in their content, the more viewers they get, and it can sometimes be a dangerous mix in that regard".

In late 2023, Kick content creators Ice Poseidon and Sam Pepper were detained by Australian police after an incident involving a man they had met earlier that day.

In response to the incident and backlash, Kick updated its guidelines, adding a report button for rule-breaking content and introducing regulations on staff participation in "high-risk" livestreams.

Twitch's former director of creator development, Marcus Graham, also criticized Kick for its lack of transparency around its connections to gambling platforms.