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Twitch streamers will be able to select from over 350 new tags
- hntroll1332 5y agoLeftist racism is going mainstream, but here at the Hacker News cafe, it's considered extremely gauche to acknowledge it. Even if you have to raise your voice to be heard over the sound of clomping boots outside, keep it polite and just keep talking about the latest CSS framework or somebody's implementation of Forth in Rust or whatever.
- 0xy 5y agoHow deep in the political echo chamber must PMs be that they cannot possibly see how this could backfire? It will take less than 72 hours for someone to have a plugin or script to filter people by these attributes, or worse, Twitch will allow filtering themselves. Racism is on trend.
- oolonthegreat 5y agoI don't see the harm in giving streamers more tags to express themselves really. maybe some situation where a "X" streamer gets criticism from chat because they don't have "X" in their tags? implicitly forcing everyone to use them?
- maficious 5y agoI can't really understand why a "Games streaming service" allows tagging/filtering/sorting streamers by anything other than games they play and the language they speak while streaming. Everything else doesn't matter. If someone won't like something, they will just leave.
- Hjfrf 5y agoI guess this is for the hot tub streamers? I can't even imaging filtering gaming streams based on the host's sexual preferences or skin tone.
- maficious 5y agoThis! "Today I want latina", said horny twitch hot tub streamer's viewer.
- CodeGlitch 5y agoWell if you're in the KKK you can now filter-out everyone but straight white people? /s Congratulations Twitch, you just made it easier for racists to use your platform.
- adflux 5y agoWe have gone full circle, it is know OK to go ahead and say: I want to see only white streamers in my feed. When are we going to get the blacks only streaming platform? Or black only swimmingpools? That was such a great idea, segregating people by color and sexuality. What the fuck Twitch. This only helps to increase the divide between social groups...
- cadencemustdie 5y agoIf you sincerely believe that allowing people to browse by tags like this is segregation of any kind, especially to the level of those other things you said, you really need to calm down and think critically about this instead of saying something that absurd out of an emotional reaction.
- adflux 5y agoAllowing people to filter by race is pretty much the definition of racism
- cadencemustdie 5y agoNo, it objectively isn't. Your objection to this might be easier to understand if you say something that isn't ridiculous or blatantly untrue
- adflux 5y agohttps://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/06/03/tech/grindr-ethnicity-filter-intl-scli/index.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/06/03/tech... Funny that both Grindr and BLM disagree with you. I wonder which part of the political spectrum does find these kind of measures appropriate... Providing features which allows user to have a prejudice (this race is more suited to my entertainment needs than another) based on race is not racism? Ok
- DangitBobby 5y ago
- aliswe 5y agoI asked in another HN thread how the line "you sound like a middle-aged white woman" in the Pixar movie Soul, is not racist? (It got downvoted) Im not really taking a stand either way, Im just trying to understand. However the case, I believe the normalizing of selectivity by race (which I guess is the definition of racism) is not final nor is its demarcation really stabilized yet.
- lotsofpulp 5y agoAs far as I understand, the difference is “punching up” and “punching down”. But it is racist, for any useful definition of racist.
- lifeformed 5y agoThe punching up/down aspect is an important part of understanding what people mean when they say "racist". By some people's definitions, "racial discrimination" means differentiating by race, while "racism" means racial discrimination as a form of oppression. This is the definition a lot of people mean when they say the word. Some people don't make that distinction, but language is fuzzy and is just a tool. A word doesn't necessarily mean anything in it's own, the meaning comes from the speaker's intention and the listener's interpretation. So if someone asked if that line from Soul is "racist", it depends on what definition you are referring to. Yes the line discriminates based on race. But, keeping cultural contexts in mind, does the line exploit power imbalances in our society against white people to denigrate them? I think a lot of people would say no.
- lotsofpulp 5y agoI can see that nuance, but the way I grew up (90s,00s,USA,minority), I do not equate the use of the word “racist” as needing to describe an act of prejudice, because I do not think it’s useful. The aforementioned joke relies on certain stereotypes of a race, making it a racist joke. I know times change, but when I was a kid, it was okay to make racist jokes as long as it was not mean spirited. We joked about all races, but the point was alway that it was a joke, similar to jokes of stereotypes about other characteristics of people. Edit: Then again, I acknowledge that language/culture are in constant flux, and maybe I should use “racial joke” instead of “racist joke” if I want to convey my thoughts to the largest number of people and have them interpret it properly? Or it can be accompanied by paragraphs of explanations.
- Darmody 5y agoWe already have business tagged with things like "black owned" or "run by women" and now this. What's next? Bracelets according your race/ancestry? I'm not going to play this game and I'll refuse to use any service that plays the identity card. Maybe Hitler would be proud (hi, Godwin) but I'm not.
- jl2718 5y agoGenuine question: Who is the source of demand for this, and what do they want to use it for? Data, personal account, and strong empiricism only please. I’m not interested in your projections upon ‘others’.
- tinus_hn 5y agoReally all they’re doing is adding optional tags that people can optionally add to themselves so others can search for them. So the source of the demand is streamers that add these tags. It’s not like you have to enter your skin color at signup.
- sascha_sl 5y agoThe trans community had a longstanding grudge on the word "trans" being banned not only from tags, but the title too. People usually go to Twitch not to find one particular game being played, but to find community. Being trans is something most cis people seem to have issues relating to, so finding other trans people is the easiest way to avoid constantly repeating awkward conversations along a barrage of false preconceptions. I'd imagine it's similar for other tags.
- sterlind 5y agowait, I'm confused. why was trans banned from titles and tags before? and if it had been banned, why's it allowed in tags now? was twitch assuming the only reason we'd tag our streams as trans because it's a porn thing? if so that's pretty messed up, though not surprising.
- sascha_sl 5y agoYour guess is as good as mine, the issue had over 12000 votes and a 2 year history on Uservoice. https://twitch.uservoice.com/forums/310210-discover/suggestions/37011022-trans-tag-request https://twitch.uservoice.com/forums/310210-discover/suggesti...
- watwut 5y agoBased on blog post, trans community persistently pushed for trans tag. So they added that one and 350+ tags more. Including veteran and disabled, they are not all about hot button issues.
- esarbe 5y agoCan we finally get over the concepts of 'race' and 'ethnicity'? These are both neither helpful in understanding society nor do they have a footing in reality. I mean - what the heck - it's 2021 and we are still taking about race? Humans have less genetic diversity than two random tribes of chimpanzees, how the heck do you even get hung up on a concept like race that no one can even define properly? These are flawed concepts and belong into the dustbin of history. Seriously messed up.
- nojito 5y agoAre you arguing that racism doesn’t exist in 2021?
- esarbe 5y agoI assume that you are asking this question in good faith, although the mental gymnastics one has to make to come to the question you ask seems quite extraordinary. But I'll bite. No, of course not. Racism - that is; discriminatory behavior towards other humans depending on their (now comes the important part) perceived or imagined membership in a totally made up group - is of course real. And bad. We should stop that. Putting people in imaginary groups and treating them different according to these imaginary groups should stop. We should stop inventing arbitrary systems of human difference and to use them as justification for the unequal treatment of others.
- nojito 5y agoOf course it's a good faith argument. the idea that >We should stop inventing arbitrary systems of human difference and to use them as justification for the unequal treatment of others. Is possible in a world where racism exists is arguing in bad faith. Of course race is made up and is completely arbitrary, but the idea that one can simply ignore racism that exists in 2021 is beyond ludicurous.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jsiepkes 5y ago> We intentionally designed that system for creators to be able to describe what they were streaming, not who they were or what they stood for. We have maintained this distinction since that time, and we were wrong. And giving people a label such as "disabled" or "LGBTQIA+" somehow defines what a person stands for or who they are? I think this must be a cultural gap because as someone who doesn't live in the US I'm seriously flabbergasted by what I'm reading. I seriously fail to see how labeling people is leading to a more tolerable and inclusive society. The blogpost also doesn't make case for it. It just pretends that it's "common sense" that it does.
- sascha_sl 5y agoIt just groups people by similar experience instead of just content. People go to Twitch for personalities, not games, so this makes more sense to me.
- TheAdamAndChe 5y agoIf that were true, then they would add tags for Christian, Conservative, white, etc. This is obviously just pandering to a certain population for wokeness points.
- watwut 5y agoIt is pretty normal for French to watch French sport rather then Italian. And vice versa. That is not uniquely US phenomenon.
- BlackjackCF 5y agoYikes. I can see that this was done with the point of good intentions, as some people may want to see non-English speaking streamers, so sorting by nationality may make that easier. But this is a huge can of worms.
- haunter 5y agoBut no religion?
- maficious 5y agoIf you say this out loud, it does sound racist, no matter what.
- vohvae 5y agoI am mostly ambivalent towards this. The change seems to be in response to what a vocal proportion of twitch's users want which makes this a logical step for twitch to take. Though I am worried that the mentioned "ally" tag will just enable cheap and pointless virtue signalling. I would prefer that the tags have the restriction that they be based on some verifiable categorisation such as nationality, physically identifiable race or similar.
- sascha_sl 5y agoIt'd be great if the ally tag came with a set of higher standards than the Twitch TOS.
- yur3i__ 5y agoAnyone saying this is some mad racist thing is really over thinking this. Its just going to be used to filter hot tub streamers by race, same as you can do on pornhub or anything else
- etempleton 5y agoAssuming good intentions here, but it is incredibly naive to not anticipate how this could lead to greater division and negative user interactions. If a user can sort by race they can also effectively create a suppression list for other races limiting exposure to new perspectives and ideas. Humans have an inate desire to sort and categorize, but I find it backwards and dehumanizing to do so for people. I understand there is value for race and gender minorities and allies to find and support each other, but by creating labels you express your differences rather than comonalities. It is in our commonalities where we relate and find compassion for each other. When differences are highlighted in such binary terms we all become characitures of our true selves.
- foobiter 5y agoEquality isn’t about ignoring differences like race, it’s about being able to recognize differences while accepting them as equally valid. The oppression of race positive spaces can have a negative impact, despite the good intention. This is an issue women also commonly deal with. Whether or not the space stays positive or is used to discriminate is incredibly challenging, for sure.
- _-david-_ 5y agoThis is getting out of control. MLK said "Judge a man not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character." But more and more it feels like people and companies are trying to get us to judge people by their skin color. I don't care what race someone is; I just want to watch entertaining content on Twitch. It doesn't matter if you are black or gay or trans or a martian when it comes to something like streaming. It does not make a difference to the content. Twitch and other companies doing this nonsense need to stop. All it is doing is dividing us not unifying us.
- watwut 5y agoMLK was pretty divisive figure tho. Quite hated and seen as disturbing the peace.
- _-david-_ 5y agoSo? What does that have to do with anything.
- watwut 5y agoYou started by MLK quote and ended by complaining about divisiveness. The speech that quote is from is call for radical action that won't stop. It was not call for peace. He was someone who pushed for what he wanted in multiple areas. Very outspoken, openly talking about race and powerty.
- _-david-_ 5y agoMLK wanted unity but because some people did not support such things MLK was considered divisive. He would almost certainly be against pushes like this and that was what I was trying to convey. He believed race was not an important attribute of a person. We now have people who think it is one of the most important thing.
- throwawaysea 5y agoIt doesn’t seem like there’s a full list of tags provided in this blog post. I find it odd that they don’t just allow free form tagging. Do they have a “white” tag? What about “Israel” or “Palestine”? What about “gender critical” or “protect women’s sports”? From reading this post and the examples they shared, it seems like Twitch is yet another explicitly biased tech platform that accommodates progressive activists and no one else’s worldview. It’s a blatant (and successful) practice of shaping opinions artificially - in other words, propaganda.