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Twitch added a new category to its content classification guidelines covering “politics and sensitive social issues”, meaning that feeds covering topics such as “elections, civic integrity, war or military conflict, and civil rights” will need to be labeled as such to ensure that viewers don’t accidentally stumble upon it and be exposed. to content they might find offensive.

Content rating labels are required for streams that do not violate Twitch Community Guidelines but contain material that might not be “appropriate for everyone, including younger viewers.” In the past, this has included things like M-rated games, sexual themes, drug use, violence and gambling. To this list is now added a new, vaguely defined category encompassing “discussions and debates on sensitive political or social issues”.

The new content category follows an ugly month for Twitch. Popular streamer Zack “Asmongold” Hoyt was suspended for two weeks following a racist tirade in which he described Palestinians as “terrible people” from an “inferior culture”. (By the way, he’s back now.) A week later, Twitch bans several Arab streamers during a month-old TwitchCon panel in which they ranked other streamers on a scale from “Arab” to “likes Sabra”, Sabra being a hummus brand owned by an Israeli-American partnership.

Around the same time, it appeared that Twitch had quietly stopped taking verified email registrations of Israel and Palestine more than a year ago. Twitch quickly apologized for the “unacceptable failure and confusion it caused,” saying it had initially disabled email verification signups following the Hamas attack on Israel on July 7. October 2023 “to prevent downloading of graphics material”, and somehow he had forgotten to turn them back on.

The events have put Twitch’s politics under the microscope, with the platform accused by various parties of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and/or gross negligence or outright incompetence.

Encouraged by these accusations, Twitch CEO Dan Clancy issued a message saying today “there is no place on Twitch for racism, hatred or harassment of any kind, including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia”, and that when Twitch discovers a content that violates its rules, it takes “immediate enforcement action.”

“Millions of streamers, with a wide variety of views and perspectives, spend time on Twitch,” Clancy wrote. “We recognize that some content, while permitted on our service, may be objectionable to some members of our community. The opinions shared by streamers on Twitch are not those of Twitch nor my personal opinions.

“We’re grateful for the feedback and contributions from our community. Our approach to security continues to grow and evolve as our service grows. We want to make sure everyone can find their place on Twitch and remain determined to ensure that hatred and harassment have no place here.”

This is a very standard and bland sort of “zero tolerance”, but it comes with new rules – or, more precisely, the new content category for “politics and sensitive issues”, which will require classification labels on streams dealing with such topics. subjects. Examples cited by Twitch include:

• Streams featuring former or current political officials if the content includes discussions with those individuals about public policy

• Live coverage or commentary on elections, civic processes, or election-related conflicts

• Live broadcasts of protests, rallies or civil unrest related to civil rights issues or government policies

• Discuss military conflicts, foreign policy decisions, or national security issues

• Discuss ideological or sociopolitical views on topics such as gender, race, sexuality, or religion

• Discuss legislation related to a sensitive social issue such as reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights or immigration

Content tags will not be required for feeds “containing informational or educational content aimed at sharing knowledge in a neutral, fact-based manner, rather than engaging in any type of advocacy for an issue or a candidate. Feeds with “intermittent mentions of politics, politicians, or sensitive social issues” are also exempt from labeling requirements.

At first glance, this all seems incredibly confusing and far more likely to make things worse than better. Does neutral “educational content” include topics such as, for example, the rise of fascism in the United States or the attempted overthrow of the legitimately elected government on January 6, 2021, or does this fall under “comments on conflicts linked to elections? “Is a recitation of Utah’s proposed anti-trans laws considered a “neutral, fact-based” presentation, or is it a discussion of a sensitive social issue? Who decides and on what base ?

I don’t think content guidelines are a bad thing per se, but these guidelines feel like a rushed and scattershot attempt to be seen “doing something” that ultimately amounts to nothing. more than an escape. What is neutrality in the face of the rise of white supremacy and LGBTQ+ hatred? What is ideological when we talk about the right to exist?

As might be expected, the response to the announcement of the new classification labels has been chaotic and largely unhappy. There are widespread calls on social media for popular streamers who focus on political topics to be banned (and accusations that Twitch is simply rolling out this new classification category to avoid doing so), with predictions that the Anti-Semitism will become widespread under the protection of “sensitive subjects”. ” and LGBTQ+ streamers are wondering if they will have to apply warning labels to streams in which they simply talk about their lives, their experiences and their identities.

“I had to have a hysterectomy at 25 due to severe and debilitating endometriosis, so reproductive health, rights and freedom is something I think I should be able to speak freely about too because it’s part of who I am,” streamer SerpentineCiCi told PC. Player. “I have also been an advocate for Center for Reproductive Rights as a charity and have used Twitch to raise money for them in the past.”

Some streamers are also concerned about the potential impact on their revenue: advertisers can, and often do, avoid streams with content warning labels, regardless of the context in which they are applied.

I have a strong feeling that this new category of content is going to seriously miss the mark and that changes, if not a complete overhaul, will happen sooner rather than later. It’s already happened: December 2023 Twitch relaxed its sexual content guidelines to allow “artistic depictions of nudity,” then reversed the change just two days later when he understood that the term “artistic” meant different things to different people.