The Meme Daily
Twitch has updated the way it handles Sexual Content
Artists & Streamers can now draw naked figures on Twitch with no Fear of Bans thanks to one of the new guidelines.
Sexually suggestive content has always been difficult for Twitch to moderate, and the platform has already taken criticism for handling it inconsistently in the past. While Twitch famously banned Indiefoxx for what the broadcaster said was a wardrobe malfunction, the platform decided to issue a warning to prominent streamer Pokimane for inadvertently displaying a Pornhub website instead of banning him. A female creator who seemed to be streaming while topless was also recently banned by Twitch.
If a stream has a Content Classification Label (CCL), which Twitch debuted in June to allow creators to alert viewers if their video contains sexual themes, gambling, vulgarity, or other mature content, the company will now let “deliberately highlighted breasts, buttocks, or pelvic region.” The same applies to “body writing on female-presenting breasts and/or buttocks,” as well as “fully exposed female-presenting breasts and/or genitals or buttocks regardless of gender” that are drawn, animated, or sculptured.
Additionally, if a stream has this designation, Twitch won’t take any action against it if it has explicit dances like strip teases. On the other hand, Twitch will no longer require a label for streams that include grinding, pole dancing, and twerking.
Twitch’s chief consumer trust officer, Angela Hession, said the company revised its guidelines in response to “continuous feedback from Streamers”
Twitch combined its policies for sections of sexually explicit content and sections of sexually suggestive content into a single Sexual Content Policy as part of today’s update to the Community Guidelines. According to Hession, the previous guideline regarding sexually suggestive content “was out of line with industry standards and resulted in disproportionate penalization of female-presenting streamers.”
While some of Twitch’s limits on sexual content are being loosened, this does not permit porn, sex games, or violent content. According to Twitch, those are prohibited entirely. Additionally, users won’t see mature streams on the homepage. Twitch’s homepage will not display any recommendations for livestreams that have labels related to drugs, alcohol, or excessive tobacco use; violent or graphic imagery; gambling; and/or sexual themes. Even now, users can look for tagged content directly on a creator’s channel or by searching for it.
However, this does not imply that streams with mature-rated content would disappear from the homepage. Twitch treats them differently: it recognizes when users are engaging in Mature-rated content and substitutes the label “Mature-rated game” automatically. See more at the Twitch FAQ on their Blog.
