7 ms·

> Community and advertiser feedback made clear that we need to offer more ways to control the content that’s recommended as well as where ads appear. So, we’re

> Community and advertiser feedback made clear that we need to offer more ways to control the content that’s recommended as well as where ads appear. So, we’re introducing a new category: Pools, Hot Tubs, and Beaches. If you have chosen swimwear that is allowed under the “Swim and Beaches” contextual exception to our standard Nudity and Attire policy, you should stream into the Pools, Hot Tubs and Beaches category. People set up kiddy-pools in their room with a bit of water to get this "contextual exception" for the express purpose of streaming suggestive content. Why not just remove the exception and let people stream sexually suggestive content and make a separate category for that without a ridiculous "beaches and pools" euphemism?

wincy 5y ago
Last time I was looking through streams I saw a woman in a bikini in a kiddie pool riding on a giant inflatable hot dog. I think her normal stream is painting herself with body paints? It’s hard to avoid and that plus the super coarse language make it seem insane to me that people let their kids watch Twitch streams. I’m sure there’s good content somewhere but it’s just not for me, if I want that stuff I’ll just go to Pornhub. Feels more honest.
- belltaco 5y ago
  You're missing the point of Twitch and also its culture. Twitch is closer to cable TV than anything else, even the terminology is the same, with 'channels'. Except that anyone can create a channel and stream it within the rules. The fact that there's some content you don't like on other channels being does not mean you shouldn't watch the streamers that you like. Just like there's a wide variety in content thats broadcast on TV channels at different times of the day. There is even a Science and Technology channel with some developers streaming their coding. There are some game developers that only code their game while streaming the IDE. Here's Stephen Wolfram streaming right now. https://www.twitch.tv/stephen_wolfram https://www.twitch.tv/stephen_wolfram Why should a Wolfram viewer care if there is some risque content on other categories? Even if you're looking around after the stream, you can just scroll past it like you do on Netflix. I personally mostly watch only the few streamers that I have followed. I rarely come across the streamers mentioned in the article except when there's some Twitch drama that I hear about on Reddit or from friends.
  - twobitshifter 5y ago
    Clicked on wolframs channel, on the left side bar of recommended channels is a live indicator for someone named "Amouranth" streaming pools, hottubs, and beaches with 14.9k viewers.
    - belltaco 5y ago
      YouTube recommendations have been historically way worse with not much push back. Not to mention way more sexually explicit content on YouTube.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
cortesoft 5y ago
Many advertisers don’t want their ads on sites that show sexual content, even if their particular ads are not shown on the sexually suggestive section of the site. Twitch must have decided that it wasn’t worth risking those advertisers.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
qsort 5y ago
Because many people like softcore pornography but they are too much of a prude to admit they do, in fact, enjoy watching softcore pornography. Also, advertisers wouldn't like it.
- DaedPsyker 5y ago
  I doubt the type of people that watch this stuff are really just prudes that can't handle porn.
  - qsort 5y ago
    It's a game of numbers, and toeing the line between porn and non-porn is the local optimum. It's like a TV channel. They'd never show actual porn but they try to get as close as possible while retaining plausible deniability.
  - crazypyro 5y ago
    I wouldn't doubt that a large percentage of the viewers are underaged users who actually do not have any experience with adult material. Twitch is a gaming site. Kids watch youtube videos of people playing games, they get funneled to check out the minecraft/fortnite/etc. category on twitch then they get curious and check out the large streamers on the site. What do you know? There's a streamer who is sitting in a hot tub with 20k viewers (enough to put her in the top streams). It doesn't matter that twitch has a "mature audience warning". Anyone who has used the site for any amount of time knows Twitch is providing a clear on-ramp to underaged kids accessing nearly-softcore porn. They can't have their cake (young, gaming advertisers) and eat it too (allow nearly naked young women in kiddie pools) on the same site... Only reason they are even being forced to make a change is because of advertisers. I can only imagine if parents actually knew the extent of the hot tub streams, twitch wouldn't be allowed in a lot of households, but since its a "gaming" site first, its under the radar.
    - darkhorse22 5y ago
      > underaged users who actually do not have any experience with adult material. A vanishingly small group. Most people aggressively seek that shit out as soon as they hit puberty.
acidbaseextract 5y ago
Probably the lost ad revenue. No company wants to advertise on those streams. By breaking them out in way where advertisers could opt out of that stream category, suggestive streamers (a huge segment of traffic) would lose money for Twitch.
- belinder 5y ago
  But isn't that already exactly what they're doing by breaking it into hot tub category and letting advertisers opt out of that category? So the question is if they let advertisers opt out anyway, why this hot tub category instead of an explicit suggestive category.
  - Ekaros 5y ago
    Payment processors? Not that Amazon don't have opportunity to run their own, but still the whole thing on that side is a mess. So they choose to not try to cross the line...
  - frosted-flakes 5y ago
    Because if Twitch becomes known or associated with explicit content, it will drive advertisers away, even if their ads are only shown over non-explicit content.
- corobo 5y ago
  > No company wants to advertise on those streams Does anyone know why this is? Is it just a legacy generation thing? If it was me hell yeah I'd be advertising on 30k viewer streams full of people eager and willing to throw money around (assume market fit, obviously)
agogdog 5y ago
Is being at a beach sexually suggestive? I think they're making a good point here by making this distinction include overtly and explicitly. We've grown into a society where nudity (or near nudity) is equated with sexual suggestiveness by default... and it seems strange.
Traster 5y ago
They don't want to be a porn site. The problem they have is that the porn content drives away advertisers and non-porn related contant. So they have to steer away from porn, but wherever they draw the line there are going to be people testing the line, and there's an audience for it. So the compromise they've clearly come up with is they don't allow porn, but if you happen to be sexy wearing practically nothing, that's fine - as long as it's got some pretext of not being porn, because porn is what will kill their non-porn related business.
- wvenable 5y ago
  Seems like there's an opportunity to just split the site, create a new brand for adult content, and send that content over to that brand.
  - mcherm 5y ago
    Yes, but it is more effective to let someone else own the second site that offers adult content. Then, for advertisers, there is no brand confusion caused by a common owner.
  - belval 5y ago
    There is not enough money in it for Amazon to start ramping up in pornographic material. The chances of brand degradation, possible boycotts due to women looking young/revenge porn is much much too high to be worth it.
    - dna_polymerase 5y ago
      They are talking about moving the existing lewd stuff out onto a new platform, not starting a PornHub alternative. There is obviously enough in it for Amazon, otherwise they would just ban the pools outright.
      - LegitShady 5y ago
        >existing lewd stuff out onto a new platform, not starting a PornHub alternative These are the same things.
bombcar 5y ago
Isn't it obvious? The advertisers don't want to advertise on a camsite, those are available elsewhere. Trying to document and define "I'll know it when I see it" is an NP-complete problem, and this won't be the end of it.
- t-writescode 5y ago
  Automating “I’ll know it when I see it” is closer to the halting problem. It might even be definable in those terms.
michaelt 5y ago
Imagine a household where the parents run a porn blocker, while a teenager wants to view risqué things. Twitch wants to keep them both happy: Not so much censorship as to drive the teenager away, but enough prudishness that porn blockers don't censor their entire domain.
- Jetrel 5y ago
  This pretty much hits a bullseye.
matheusmoreira 5y ago
The advertisers won't like it. Anything they don't like gets banned because they're the ones with the money.
LegitShady 5y ago
Because twitch is a disaster, the openly hypocritical armpit of internet streaming. Less honest than an actual camgirl site, but preachy and idiotic at the same time. What's the point of protecting their reputation when their reputation is the home of camgirls and hot tub streamers pushing their onlyfans pages already? At least if they were honest about it I could respect that, but they're not. I hope they fail.
corobo 5y ago
> Why not just remove the exception and let people stream sexually suggestive content Because you'll lose your card processor and have to switch to a high risk processor which halves your income. America is super weird when it comes to sex and there's no alternatives.
1MachineElf 5y ago
As Traster said, they don't want to be labelled as a porn site in spite of the streaming content they have, and so i.e. they must implement a change that gives them some plausible deniability in the face of advertisers.

wincy 5y ago

Last time I was looking through streams I saw a woman in a bikini in a kiddie pool riding on a giant inflatable hot dog. I think her normal stream is painting herself with body paints? It’s hard to avoid and that plus the super coarse language make it seem insane to me that people let their kids watch Twitch streams. I’m sure there’s good content somewhere but it’s just not for me, if I want that stuff I’ll just go to Pornhub. Feels more honest.

belltaco 5y ago
You're missing the point of Twitch and also its culture. Twitch is closer to cable TV than anything else, even the terminology is the same, with 'channels'. Except that anyone can create a channel and stream it within the rules. The fact that there's some content you don't like on other channels being does not mean you shouldn't watch the streamers that you like. Just like there's a wide variety in content thats broadcast on TV channels at different times of the day. There is even a Science and Technology channel with some developers streaming their coding. There are some game developers that only code their game while streaming the IDE. Here's Stephen Wolfram streaming right now. https://www.twitch.tv/stephen_wolfram https://www.twitch.tv/stephen_wolfram Why should a Wolfram viewer care if there is some risque content on other categories? Even if you're looking around after the stream, you can just scroll past it like you do on Netflix. I personally mostly watch only the few streamers that I have followed. I rarely come across the streamers mentioned in the article except when there's some Twitch drama that I hear about on Reddit or from friends.
- twobitshifter 5y ago
  Clicked on wolframs channel, on the left side bar of recommended channels is a live indicator for someone named "Amouranth" streaming pools, hottubs, and beaches with 14.9k viewers.
  - belltaco 5y ago
    YouTube recommendations have been historically way worse with not much push back. Not to mention way more sexually explicit content on YouTube.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

cortesoft 5y ago

Many advertisers don’t want their ads on sites that show sexual content, even if their particular ads are not shown on the sexually suggestive section of the site. Twitch must have decided that it wasn’t worth risking those advertisers.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

qsort 5y ago

Because many people like softcore pornography but they are too much of a prude to admit they do, in fact, enjoy watching softcore pornography. Also, advertisers wouldn't like it.

DaedPsyker 5y ago
I doubt the type of people that watch this stuff are really just prudes that can't handle porn.
- qsort 5y ago
  It's a game of numbers, and toeing the line between porn and non-porn is the local optimum. It's like a TV channel. They'd never show actual porn but they try to get as close as possible while retaining plausible deniability.
- crazypyro 5y ago
  I wouldn't doubt that a large percentage of the viewers are underaged users who actually do not have any experience with adult material. Twitch is a gaming site. Kids watch youtube videos of people playing games, they get funneled to check out the minecraft/fortnite/etc. category on twitch then they get curious and check out the large streamers on the site. What do you know? There's a streamer who is sitting in a hot tub with 20k viewers (enough to put her in the top streams). It doesn't matter that twitch has a "mature audience warning". Anyone who has used the site for any amount of time knows Twitch is providing a clear on-ramp to underaged kids accessing nearly-softcore porn. They can't have their cake (young, gaming advertisers) and eat it too (allow nearly naked young women in kiddie pools) on the same site... Only reason they are even being forced to make a change is because of advertisers. I can only imagine if parents actually knew the extent of the hot tub streams, twitch wouldn't be allowed in a lot of households, but since its a "gaming" site first, its under the radar.
  - darkhorse22 5y ago
    > underaged users who actually do not have any experience with adult material. A vanishingly small group. Most people aggressively seek that shit out as soon as they hit puberty.

acidbaseextract 5y ago

Probably the lost ad revenue. No company wants to advertise on those streams. By breaking them out in way where advertisers could opt out of that stream category, suggestive streamers (a huge segment of traffic) would lose money for Twitch.

belinder 5y ago
But isn't that already exactly what they're doing by breaking it into hot tub category and letting advertisers opt out of that category? So the question is if they let advertisers opt out anyway, why this hot tub category instead of an explicit suggestive category.
- Ekaros 5y ago
  Payment processors? Not that Amazon don't have opportunity to run their own, but still the whole thing on that side is a mess. So they choose to not try to cross the line...
- frosted-flakes 5y ago
  Because if Twitch becomes known or associated with explicit content, it will drive advertisers away, even if their ads are only shown over non-explicit content.
corobo 5y ago
> No company wants to advertise on those streams Does anyone know why this is? Is it just a legacy generation thing? If it was me hell yeah I'd be advertising on 30k viewer streams full of people eager and willing to throw money around (assume market fit, obviously)

agogdog 5y ago

Is being at a beach sexually suggestive? I think they're making a good point here by making this distinction include overtly and explicitly. We've grown into a society where nudity (or near nudity) is equated with sexual suggestiveness by default... and it seems strange.

Traster 5y ago

They don't want to be a porn site. The problem they have is that the porn content drives away advertisers and non-porn related contant. So they have to steer away from porn, but wherever they draw the line there are going to be people testing the line, and there's an audience for it. So the compromise they've clearly come up with is they don't allow porn, but if you happen to be sexy wearing practically nothing, that's fine - as long as it's got some pretext of not being porn, because porn is what will kill their non-porn related business.

wvenable 5y ago
Seems like there's an opportunity to just split the site, create a new brand for adult content, and send that content over to that brand.
- mcherm 5y ago
  Yes, but it is more effective to let someone else own the second site that offers adult content. Then, for advertisers, there is no brand confusion caused by a common owner.
- belval 5y ago
  There is not enough money in it for Amazon to start ramping up in pornographic material. The chances of brand degradation, possible boycotts due to women looking young/revenge porn is much much too high to be worth it.
  - dna_polymerase 5y ago
    They are talking about moving the existing lewd stuff out onto a new platform, not starting a PornHub alternative. There is obviously enough in it for Amazon, otherwise they would just ban the pools outright.
    - LegitShady 5y ago
      >existing lewd stuff out onto a new platform, not starting a PornHub alternative These are the same things.

bombcar 5y ago

Isn't it obvious? The advertisers don't want to advertise on a camsite, those are available elsewhere. Trying to document and define "I'll know it when I see it" is an NP-complete problem, and this won't be the end of it.

t-writescode 5y ago
Automating “I’ll know it when I see it” is closer to the halting problem. It might even be definable in those terms.

michaelt 5y ago

Imagine a household where the parents run a porn blocker, while a teenager wants to view risqué things. Twitch wants to keep them both happy: Not so much censorship as to drive the teenager away, but enough prudishness that porn blockers don't censor their entire domain.

Jetrel 5y ago
This pretty much hits a bullseye.

matheusmoreira 5y ago

The advertisers won't like it. Anything they don't like gets banned because they're the ones with the money.

LegitShady 5y ago

Because twitch is a disaster, the openly hypocritical armpit of internet streaming. Less honest than an actual camgirl site, but preachy and idiotic at the same time. What's the point of protecting their reputation when their reputation is the home of camgirls and hot tub streamers pushing their onlyfans pages already? At least if they were honest about it I could respect that, but they're not. I hope they fail.

corobo 5y ago

> Why not just remove the exception and let people stream sexually suggestive content Because you'll lose your card processor and have to switch to a high risk processor which halves your income. America is super weird when it comes to sex and there's no alternatives.

1MachineElf 5y ago

As Traster said, they don't want to be labelled as a porn site in spite of the streaming content they have, and so i.e. they must implement a change that gives them some plausible deniability in the face of advertisers.