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Calls for Twitch to police 'sexual streaming'
- knowaveragejoe 9y agoTwitch already has a flagging system for "mature" content, and they ban anything with actual nudity pretty aggressively. It sounds like this is actually a call to police the use of sex appeal by streamers, which seems like a difficult thing to judge in general and I'm not sure how they could actually achieve such a thing.
- omegaworks 9y agoIt's probably blowback from American Vandal.
- Waterluvian 9y agoYeah it gets into the hyper subjective realm of what is acceptable or not. If I sexually identify as a CAS aircraft, will they ban DCS A-10 Simulator as sexual content? On the other hand, they're a company so they're perfectly allowed to decide where they draw the line and enforce that. I just hope we don't accidentally cause a regression with women in gaming by accidentally enforcing a dress code that mostly impacts women.
- knowaveragejoe 9y agoI'm left wondering how they would actually scale any sort of enforcement like that. Look at reports people submit?
- ben_w 9y ago> If I sexually identify as a CAS aircraft, will they ban DCS A-10 Simulator as sexual content? I don’t know if this is a joke, but that is a thing that happens. Given how long I was blind to my own (relatively straightforward) bisexuality, I think the real answer is that people in charge literally cannot conceive of sexuality that far away from their worldview.
- ericnyamu 9y agoStop this bullshit. God created male or female.the more you understand this the better.so now that you think you are both male and female,are you going to fuck yourself and have kids?
- wisty 9y agoFor a less silly and inflammatory example, how about feet? Because there certainly are foot fetishists out there.
- unobtaniumstool 9y agoThat's a pretty classic example really. I know Flickr had some awkward interactions with a foot fetishist community that took up residence there, because they didn't reeeally post anything that violated the terms of service, they were just kind of creepy about it.
- LinuxBender 9y agoThere are people sexually aroused by eyes as well.
- pjc50 9y ago> I just hope we don't accidentally cause a regression with women in gaming by accidentally enforcing a dress code that mostly impacts women. See the recent Naomi Wu controversy.
- ryanlol 9y agoYeah, this is just what angry nerds on reddit have been pushing for a while because they’re upset that pretty women are earning a decent living by playing games online.
- NathanKP 9y agoYeah I don't really understand who is complaining. You have to go pretty out of your way to find these "sexual streamers" and they have pretty low viewer count to be honest. If you stick to browsing Twitch by game you almost never see them, and the top game streams have 10k-20k viewers at all times. You have to specifically go to the IRL section of Twitch to find camgirl style streams, and most of these "sexual streamers" have under 1k viewers. It's hardly a mainstream part of Twitch, and is something you have to specifically hunt down.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ktta 9y agoI think the problem is about brand image. All it takes is one person pointing out to an advertiser their ad beside these streamers. Of course, there's the other image problem with gaming competitions etc. who will hesitate a bit if Twitch was conducive to this behavior.
- heartbreak 9y agoBecause we all know advertising and scantily clad women do not mix. With less snark, advertising as an industry is famous for “sex sells”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_in_advertising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_in_advertising
- ktta 9y agoWell sure sex is a great way to sell products, but for Twitch it will be terrible. They are selling a brand and a platform. That's all they have, because the tech is not too hard to replicate. That, and existing users, which I'll get to now. Twitch already has a reputation with gamers/streamers of becoming something close to a camsite slowly(while it seems hyperbolic, sentiments of most of people there usually are too), contrary to what it was meant to be - a purely game streaming centered site. Apart from infuriating other usual steamers on the site who will lose viewers to the 'sexual content' steamers (and will result in general discontentment). These streamers will most likely leave to YouTube Gaming or something else. If that doesn't happen, there are long term ramifications to consider. Say Twitch accepts that section of streamers and continues with MATURE AUDIENCE ONLY labels etc. Now obviously those videos won't be monetized so they are more of an expense now. Then, if they become a significant part of the website, they'll get questions from upper management. Despite silicon valley considering itself 'progressive', none of them will be okay with this (see patreon). Then comes the next step: Gaming competitions and other engagements. If a gaming competition accepts Twitch as a sponsor, people will see it as if the events agree with that part of Twitch, which is a no-no because those events have kids' parents to consider (remember, you still can't swear in most similar events and hosts get fined if they do). While this may seem like a weak argument, a weak enough link to sex industry is enough for investors to pull out. That's because they fear the occasional articles from The Daily Beast and The New Yorker about the effects of Twitch on teenagers' sexuality and the world in general. Now say one of those lead to someone from the NYT or Bloomberg looking for a story, you've got investors making calls who read a lengthy piece about how Twitch is preying on adolescent kids. Do you think this is too outlandish? Look at YouTube's 'weird videos aimed at kids' problem and how many people it is hiring and time it is investing to solve that problem. Twitch is more at risk since it is a newer brand still at the 'first impression' stage for many. And boy you don't want to get that wrong. Ask parents if they are okay with letting their kids have (paid!) membership on Twich after that news gets out. Parents are a huge effect on revenue of services their kids use.
- ben_jones 9y agoDevil's advocate: a small portion of streamers use their sexuality to solicit large donations from individuals who cannot afford such donations. Sure you can't police it, but it kind of underpins the site when every popular game has multiple people using this strategy for personal profit. It's highly visible, everybody knows about it. Shouldn't it at least be talked about?
- neaanopri 9y agoTo Devil's Advocate the Devil's Advocate: This isn't a "sexualized streaming" issue, this is an issue of people donating money they don't have or can't afford. Outside of a personally invasive police state, I don't see a way of stopping this beyond some sort of flags for people who donate too much, similar to how gambling addiction is dealt with.
- zaroth 9y ago> solicit large donations from individuals who cannot afford such donations. This makes no sense. Either Dad should take back the credit card or adults can make their own decisions. Either way, I can’t see how that would have anything to do with the person streaming the video asking for cash! I mean, argue that cute girls have it easy getting cash for titilating their viewers. Argue that Twitch isn’t for tits. But arguing that boobs made someone spend money they couldn’t afford is just debasing to men everywhere.
- lotyrin 9y agoPeople don't exist in such clean categories, there is a spectrum on which everyone lies w.r.t. their abilities of self awareness and self control and their knowledge of their present and future situations, and therefore their ability to act within their own best interests. Communities which seek to maximize future outcomes for their members necessarily seek to aid them by limiting harmful actions. Where the lines are drawn, how the limits are enacted, and whether or not something is harmful is of course a matter of opinion.
- zaroth 9y ago
- jchw 9y ago>and they ban anything with actual nudity pretty aggressively. Framing it as if they only ban aggressively for actual nudity is unfair. They ban aggressively on all kinds of fronts, including very subjective criteria, they just do it very inconsistently. For all I care, they can do whatever they want. But I do feel like they are hard to take seriously until they decide to apply their rules equally. They do not. They have egregiously played favorites in a way that is surprising for such a big and respected entity as Twitch. The thing that sucks is, the irresponsible ways that Twitch and YouTube behave hurts everyone, because they try to sell ads on content they know advertisers wouldn't like, and when advertisers wise up they overreact and become adverse to supporting small content creators. They would rather have "safe," big content creators instead, where they can feel like they're getting their money's worth.
- r00fus 9y ago> But I do feel like they are hard to take seriously until they decide to apply their rules equally. They do not. Any examples that can help me understand? Perhaps the advertising angle goes hand in hand with the above inequality. Ads are essentially buying real-estate in your brain. One way is to have exclusives (i.e., buying out the room), another is Yelp-style (pay-to-play).
- sAvi0r 9y agoDebate with Pink Sparkles - Twitch Boobie Streamers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7ZbIpT2PXg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7ZbIpT2PXg (24:00) Twitch Booby Streamers - A Crisis of Culture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySypTRw8AvY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySypTRw8AvY (50:06) If you've got the time, the above two videos are a great rundown of the current 'sexual streaming' situation on twitch by one of the first ever professional streamers. He can be a bit edgy at times, and there's swearing in the video if that's not your thing, but he has a solid, well thought-out opinion when it comes to most things. The whole situation is a mess, with crazy misogynist incel types on one side and Twitch on the other just sort of ignoring complaints and being complicit in the mass harassment of some of the women on their platform. If you want some examples of their inconsistent application of the rules, you could check out many of the things LegendaryLea was given short temporary bans for, then compare it to e.g. the stream IamSSunny was permanently banned for, which was later arbitrarily reduced to a temporary ban - driving home just how inconsistent they are with their own rules. Mildly NSFW though, so I won't post any direct examples here.
- tomc1985 9y agoWatching the world drift further and further towards moral prudery is so disheartening, especially when so much social progress was made on this front during the 60s and 70s. Society is so cyclical :/
- hackinthebochs 9y agoAgreed. I feel like I don't recognize liberalism in the kinds of things that people advocate for these days.
- jhanschoo 9y agoI actually don't associate this with liberalism. To me this seems an extension of the "real gamers" phenomenon, where certain gamers think that gaming and streaming should correspond to some good-at-the-game, purely-about-the-game ideal, which the sex appeal streams clearly do not fall into.
- lawnchair_larry 9y agoI'm not sure where you got the ideal that moral prudery is involved here, but it has nothing to do with that. The people who want "twitch girls" off the site do not have any objections to cam girls. The problem is that they're hijacking a service that was built for and by a specific community. Twitch has a large number of sex workers who are just using it as a conduit to find "customers" and are not contributing to the community, but detracting from it. There are other sites dedicated to that. This is especially problematic for female streamers who are community members and get constantly harassed with "tits or gtfo" or worse. They struggle to be taken seriously as gamers due to the cheap antics and "accidental wardrobe malfunctions" employed by the other women on the site, and are punished for it in terms of number of viewers.
- tomc1985 9y agoMy age group (and younger) seems to be trending towards a more conservative-yet-inclusive set of morals. This new stink about camgirl streamers is just one facet of something wider and more encompassing. Or maybe I'm just pissed that people are growing up and favoring more family-friendly stuff.
- vultour 9y agoYou mean how they hand out 24 hour bans to women for "accidentaly" showing genitals, meanwhile other streamers are getting permanently banned left and right for much smaller infractions?
- apk-d 9y agoOh come on, why can't we just have fun? The site already has a "no nudity allowed" policy and a per-stream "mature audiences only" warning screen.
- noobermin 9y agoI think the idea is people who don't have the same sex appeal feel they are finding it hard to compete. Also, they feel it is "changing" the feel of the site. Not saying I agree, that's what it sounds like to me.
- Akujin 9y agoThis was part of Twitch from the very beginning. The idea that it's "new" is really just ignorant people finding out after the fact and then complaining about it as if it wasn't always there.
- noobermin 9y agoI don't think it's a "there exists" argument, it's more that a significant fraction is now devoted to it.
- apk-d 9y agoIt's easy to be salty when you're an unappreciated streamer and there's girls out there having an easier time with less effort. However, they're even not competing for the same audience. As to the second thing, it's a valid point, but there are solutions that don't resort to removing streams.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago>However, they're even not competing for the same audience. I don't think that's exactly accurate. Presumably the major audience for both types of streamers is young boys/men.
- 9y ago
- rhizome 9y agoThe sex-work scolds have found a new cause.
- crsv 9y agoIt's interesting to see the timing on when mainstream media runs these things. BBC is picking this up when most of the intensity around the topic was piping up on Reddit over the last couple of months. I just find the lag between when something hits the BBC vs the people directly involved with it fascinating. The devolution of stream content on Twitch is really is something that needs to be addressed though. Anyone that thinks that Twitch isn't turning in to a soft-core cam girls site can just load the IRL section of Twitch and see for themselves. It takes about a 30 second cursory glance to see the themes.
- ben_w 9y agoUK news probably doesn’t provide much insight by way of timing; 98% is Brexit related now, even reader reviews of books published ten years ago — the rest is blessed relief that is often rapidly overcome with more Brexit.
- freeflight 9y ago> Anyone that thinks that Twitch isn't turning in to a soft-core cam girls site can just load the IRL section of Twitch and see for themselves. And it's not even like anybody is trying to hide it, the Patreon's of many of these Streamers involve rewards like "Private lewd pictures" and their "gaming" often boils down to a video of a game being played in a small corner of the screen or simply playing rhythm/dance games. Some of these Streamers advertise the fact they work as strippers/dancers in some place, it's a really weird combination of gaming and cam-girl culture. Imho it's kinda exploitive considering how it combines two of the things young males in puberty just love to do and plays on them very heavily.
- mschuster91 9y agoI dont see what's exploitive on young males there. Older generations have had Playboys from the gas station and dad's VHS collection (or if they knew someone, their own), my generation had emule, Us porn sites and prepaid CCs, the new generation has patreon and camgirls.
- 9y ago
- coffee9 9y agoDidn't even have to finish the headline to know it was the UK.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y agoSo I think Twitch actually will ban 'booby streamers' but I don't expect them to do it yet. The problem is that the community Twitch has built wants Twitch to be about games with little bits of other stuff but twitch wants to be a general service streaming site that just happened to start out with games. Sexualized streaming is a great way to branch out into non-game related livestreaming but also hurts the reputation of the site so I think allowing these streams is probably a temporary measure to build up the IRL streaming.
- s73ver_ 9y agoThe problem is, there's a contingent of people on Twitch that will call any woman who's not completely flat chested or not all covered up a "booby streamer".
- ameister14 9y agoThe rise of new Victorianism.
- jlebrech 9y agowomen are sexier than men, so this is just anti-women.
- juicyfroot 9y agoThis
- marme 9y agothey should just relaunch justin.tv and move the IRL section to there. The big problem that the gamer streamers have is the IRL streamers are flooding twitch with users that are not the gaming streamers audience
- fetus 9y agos
- fetus 9y agoJust creating the next generation of pornographically obsessed males who will suffer from ED. murica!
- LinuxBender 9y agoIf this is such a problem, then clearly there is a demand for it. Perhaps create a channel just for sexual streaming. The only question is, what to call it?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Sylos 9y agoWell, they can't do that, because it would give the impression that they're tolerating it. Which they are, but they can't leave that impression.
- LinuxBender 9y agoAssuming the streamer proves they are at or above the legal age of consent for their location, why could this not be tolerated?
- Sylos 9y agoI'm not saying that it shouldn't be tolerated. But other people don't want it to be tolerated, usually hardcore religious people. With Twitch officially prohibiting it and streamers doing it anyways, those people will be angry at the streamers, not so much at Twitch.
- local_host 9y agoTwatch.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- juicyfroot 9y agoHere comes the moral police. Deciding for you and me what we can consent to.
- jacksmith21006 9y agoJust wish Amazon would give Twitch back to the Roku. Amazon anti competitive behavior lately is a bit out of hand.