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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 aw

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.
      - jtolmar 5y ago
        They're suggesting a platform for sexually suggestive content, as opposed to one for sexually explicit content. Which might actually be a viable niche. There are a lot more explicit websites out there than softcore ones.
        LegitShady 5y ago
        I understand the distinction, but ultimately the reputation issue for twitch would be identical. "They're opening a porn site?" "No no, its a separate site for softcore...err sexually suggestive material" It isn't a win either way, and they'd be entering established markets that already have entrenched businesses and wouldn't have the 'walk through' traffic the video games sections of twitch provide.
    - cratermoon 5y ago
      In December 2019, Gfycat started redgifs.com for adult content. Tumblr banned adult content. FOSTA/SESTA creeps up.
  - derefr 5y ago
    Amazon already is in the pornographic-streaming market, just at a remove. Who do you think the biggest customers of AWS's media-streaming IaaS infrastructure offerings are? People who need to move terabytes per second of live video over the Internet, but for some reason cannot make an Enterprise partnership with one of the public-facing media-hosting services (e.g. YouTube, Hulu, etc.) There's really only one industry matching that description. I'd even bet that those infrastructure services already share a common backbone with Twitch. So this offering already basically exists. It's just white-labelled, rather than Twitch-branded.
    - mrzimmerman 5y ago
      That’s a gross oversimplification. That’s like saying “every application hosted on a server running Linux is basically the same”. AWS makes money by hosting all kinds of things, it doesn’t mean Amazon the company is a once removed partner of every single company using their infrastructure.
      - derefr 5y ago
        > It doesn’t mean Amazon the company is a once removed partner of every single company using their infrastructure. I mean, that was my point: that Amazon prefers the optics of not being a partner to these companies, even though, technologically (not financially), there's no difference between what they're doing right now, and what they'd be doing if they ran a "Twitch for porn." Which is why they're just fine with being twice-removed partners to these companies, through vertical integrators. Amazon are fine with e.g. Heroku and other PaaSes repackaging their IaaS services into convenient vertical-specific packages. Amazon don't want to run Heroku; they just want to eat 90% of Heroku's margins. Which essentially gets them all the upside of running Heroku anyway, without the risks of actually going into the PaaS vertical, marketing to small customers, etc. The same logic applies with porn production: Amazon would much rather not create "Twitch for porn", but rather allow someone else to use AWS to create a "Twitch for porn", and then have that service pay AWS exorbitant egress-bandwidth fees. All the same benefit of owning such a company themselves, with none of the hard work, and better yet, none of the tarnish. But also, keep in mind: if 80% of the customers for an infrastructure service are using it for a use-case in the X vertical, then that service is effectively a service-provider in the X vertical, whether it wants to be or not. Even if AWS isn't explicitly running a "Twitch for porn", if 80% of e.g. Kinesis Streams infra is being allocated to transcoding porn, then you'd better believe that the devs for Kinesis Streams, and the ops staff that run it, both know what their service is usually used for — and likely have spent time tuning their service to cope with the particular needs of that workload. To do otherwise would be irresponsible!
- patmcc 5y ago
  There are already lots of adult content sites; the reason these streamers exist on twitch specifically is because they can reach an audience that isn't on adult sites.
- deleted 5y ago
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- nickysielicki 5y ago
  Not an option, Amazon doesn't want to own a porn company.
- jedimastert 5y ago
  You say that like there isn't already a massive amount of adult live streaming sites. They led the way!
- deleted 5y ago
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oliwarner 5y ago
No, they don't want to admit to being a porn site. Tying themselves in knots with silly rules like this means they're just a gateway for people to promote their OnlyFans pages. If they want to be a game streaming site, why allow player video at all? Pare it back to what it was actually for.
- tolbish 5y ago
  What happens when advertisers do not care about pornographic content?
  - frosted-flakes 5y ago
    That will happen if society at large does not care about pornographic content. Which is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
- danso 5y ago
  They aren’t just a game streaming site. “Just Chatting” is a huge category, as is live music
  - throwaway292893 5y ago
    Both of those categories are where most of these girls are, they are the bulk of those categories.
- ludamad 5y ago
  They don't want to be whatever the market calls a porn site. Advertising a porn site is a lesser taboo I love the weird twitch content BTW, so I wouldn't want to pare down for the sake of risque entertainers
- SubiculumCode 5y ago
  I'd say that is more true of tiktok et al than twitch.
- hellotomyrars 5y ago
TheAdamAndChe 5y ago
I saw the same culture policing from advertisers warp the foundation of YouTube too. Why are advertisers like that? Why don't they just go where the people want to go?
- ttt0 5y ago
  It's just a speculation, but it's probably a bullshit excuse to ban whoever they want honestly. Advertisers can definitely back out from smaller websites, but from Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitch? I doubt it. They're supposed to throw away all that reach because of what, because their ads appeared on a couple of videos that were either sexually suggestive or because someone said the N-word? I run adblock, but if I'm not mistaken there are plenty of ads that are sexually suggestive themselves. On top of that I believe YouTube are about to play ads on all videos, if they aren't already doing that (by the way, they promised that they won't do that, but it was years ago, so no one remembers that). It's just that they'll ban you for whatever arbitrary reason or you just won't get any money if you're lucky.
chevill 5y ago
What's funny is that they insist on pretending that these streamers aren't trying to sexualize themselves. The streamer that caused this blog to be written basically uses her twitch channel as a front to sell her nudes on another site. If people want to sexualize themselves for money that's their business, the problem is they keep trying to find loopholes in the conduct policy to transform a site about videogames that children frequent into something sexual. They mention the tools that allow you to filter channels on their website. They make it really easy to block channels that are recommended to you. Why not extend that functionality to the entire site so you can just click 2-3 times and get rid of any channel for any reason forever? The answer is simple: Money.
- Siira 5y ago
  Has there been any good meta analyses on the effects of suggestive content on children? My prior is that seeing sex was common enough in the ancestral environment, both human and animal sex, and children won’t be much effected from this content floating around.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    People don’t want to dig too much into it as either it will show it’s a problem, or show that advertising is ineffective.
  - emsy 5y ago
    I think you're right with the ancestral environment, however I don't know whether the types of contents you can find on the internet are in the same ballpark and whether or not they have a negative impact on a child's development.
  - idiotsecant 5y ago
    The difference is that hot tub twitch isn't an actual interaction between two people, its a dopamine feedback loop that warps an un-jaded mind into thinking it's reality.
    - 5y ago
ixacto 5y ago
They want the simp $ but without being a porn site. So twitch will just evolve into girls-gone-wild light. This is kinda hilarious though some brand managers must really be squirming when they are tying to sell advert spend for furniture or something on the twitch beach boob cam.
cblconfederate 5y ago
in old times, TV had late night shows, bordering soft porn, in which advertisements like alcohol and cigarettes seemed popular. It was never without ads (or it wouldn't exist). I wonder how come the online world advertising ecosystem has evolved to be an infantile one
- zeeZ 5y ago
  In Germany it was mostly ads for phone sex hotlines and ringtone subscription scams that ran at night in my youth.

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.
    - jtolmar 5y ago
      They're suggesting a platform for sexually suggestive content, as opposed to one for sexually explicit content. Which might actually be a viable niche. There are a lot more explicit websites out there than softcore ones.
      - LegitShady 5y ago
        I understand the distinction, but ultimately the reputation issue for twitch would be identical. "They're opening a porn site?" "No no, its a separate site for softcore...err sexually suggestive material" It isn't a win either way, and they'd be entering established markets that already have entrenched businesses and wouldn't have the 'walk through' traffic the video games sections of twitch provide.
  - cratermoon 5y ago
    In December 2019, Gfycat started redgifs.com for adult content. Tumblr banned adult content. FOSTA/SESTA creeps up.
- derefr 5y ago
  Amazon already is in the pornographic-streaming market, just at a remove. Who do you think the biggest customers of AWS's media-streaming IaaS infrastructure offerings are? People who need to move terabytes per second of live video over the Internet, but for some reason cannot make an Enterprise partnership with one of the public-facing media-hosting services (e.g. YouTube, Hulu, etc.) There's really only one industry matching that description. I'd even bet that those infrastructure services already share a common backbone with Twitch. So this offering already basically exists. It's just white-labelled, rather than Twitch-branded.
  - mrzimmerman 5y ago
    That’s a gross oversimplification. That’s like saying “every application hosted on a server running Linux is basically the same”. AWS makes money by hosting all kinds of things, it doesn’t mean Amazon the company is a once removed partner of every single company using their infrastructure.
    - derefr 5y ago
      > It doesn’t mean Amazon the company is a once removed partner of every single company using their infrastructure. I mean, that was my point: that Amazon prefers the optics of not being a partner to these companies, even though, technologically (not financially), there's no difference between what they're doing right now, and what they'd be doing if they ran a "Twitch for porn." Which is why they're just fine with being twice-removed partners to these companies, through vertical integrators. Amazon are fine with e.g. Heroku and other PaaSes repackaging their IaaS services into convenient vertical-specific packages. Amazon don't want to run Heroku; they just want to eat 90% of Heroku's margins. Which essentially gets them all the upside of running Heroku anyway, without the risks of actually going into the PaaS vertical, marketing to small customers, etc. The same logic applies with porn production: Amazon would much rather not create "Twitch for porn", but rather allow someone else to use AWS to create a "Twitch for porn", and then have that service pay AWS exorbitant egress-bandwidth fees. All the same benefit of owning such a company themselves, with none of the hard work, and better yet, none of the tarnish. But also, keep in mind: if 80% of the customers for an infrastructure service are using it for a use-case in the X vertical, then that service is effectively a service-provider in the X vertical, whether it wants to be or not. Even if AWS isn't explicitly running a "Twitch for porn", if 80% of e.g. Kinesis Streams infra is being allocated to transcoding porn, then you'd better believe that the devs for Kinesis Streams, and the ops staff that run it, both know what their service is usually used for — and likely have spent time tuning their service to cope with the particular needs of that workload. To do otherwise would be irresponsible!
patmcc 5y ago
There are already lots of adult content sites; the reason these streamers exist on twitch specifically is because they can reach an audience that isn't on adult sites.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
deleted 5y ago
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nickysielicki 5y ago
Not an option, Amazon doesn't want to own a porn company.
jedimastert 5y ago
You say that like there isn't already a massive amount of adult live streaming sites. They led the way!
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

oliwarner 5y ago

No, they don't want to admit to being a porn site. Tying themselves in knots with silly rules like this means they're just a gateway for people to promote their OnlyFans pages. If they want to be a game streaming site, why allow player video at all? Pare it back to what it was actually for.

tolbish 5y ago
What happens when advertisers do not care about pornographic content?
- frosted-flakes 5y ago
  That will happen if society at large does not care about pornographic content. Which is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
danso 5y ago
They aren’t just a game streaming site. “Just Chatting” is a huge category, as is live music
- throwaway292893 5y ago
  Both of those categories are where most of these girls are, they are the bulk of those categories.
ludamad 5y ago
They don't want to be whatever the market calls a porn site. Advertising a porn site is a lesser taboo I love the weird twitch content BTW, so I wouldn't want to pare down for the sake of risque entertainers
SubiculumCode 5y ago
I'd say that is more true of tiktok et al than twitch.
hellotomyrars 5y ago

TheAdamAndChe 5y ago

I saw the same culture policing from advertisers warp the foundation of YouTube too. Why are advertisers like that? Why don't they just go where the people want to go?

ttt0 5y ago
It's just a speculation, but it's probably a bullshit excuse to ban whoever they want honestly. Advertisers can definitely back out from smaller websites, but from Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitch? I doubt it. They're supposed to throw away all that reach because of what, because their ads appeared on a couple of videos that were either sexually suggestive or because someone said the N-word? I run adblock, but if I'm not mistaken there are plenty of ads that are sexually suggestive themselves. On top of that I believe YouTube are about to play ads on all videos, if they aren't already doing that (by the way, they promised that they won't do that, but it was years ago, so no one remembers that). It's just that they'll ban you for whatever arbitrary reason or you just won't get any money if you're lucky.

chevill 5y ago

What's funny is that they insist on pretending that these streamers aren't trying to sexualize themselves. The streamer that caused this blog to be written basically uses her twitch channel as a front to sell her nudes on another site. If people want to sexualize themselves for money that's their business, the problem is they keep trying to find loopholes in the conduct policy to transform a site about videogames that children frequent into something sexual. They mention the tools that allow you to filter channels on their website. They make it really easy to block channels that are recommended to you. Why not extend that functionality to the entire site so you can just click 2-3 times and get rid of any channel for any reason forever? The answer is simple: Money.

Siira 5y ago
Has there been any good meta analyses on the effects of suggestive content on children? My prior is that seeing sex was common enough in the ancestral environment, both human and animal sex, and children won’t be much effected from this content floating around.
- bombcar 5y ago
  People don’t want to dig too much into it as either it will show it’s a problem, or show that advertising is ineffective.
- emsy 5y ago
  I think you're right with the ancestral environment, however I don't know whether the types of contents you can find on the internet are in the same ballpark and whether or not they have a negative impact on a child's development.
- idiotsecant 5y ago
  The difference is that hot tub twitch isn't an actual interaction between two people, its a dopamine feedback loop that warps an un-jaded mind into thinking it's reality.
  - 5y ago

ixacto 5y ago

They want the simp $ but without being a porn site. So twitch will just evolve into girls-gone-wild light. This is kinda hilarious though some brand managers must really be squirming when they are tying to sell advert spend for furniture or something on the twitch beach boob cam.

cblconfederate 5y ago

in old times, TV had late night shows, bordering soft porn, in which advertisements like alcohol and cigarettes seemed popular. It was never without ads (or it wouldn't exist). I wonder how come the online world advertising ecosystem has evolved to be an infantile one

zeeZ 5y ago
In Germany it was mostly ads for phone sex hotlines and ringtone subscription scams that ran at night in my youth.