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Is that what triggered this action now? It's odd because any category of streamer could be paying employees large sums of money to recommend them. A lot of game

Is that what triggered this action now? It's odd because any category of streamer could be paying employees large sums of money to recommend them. A lot of gamers say that Pool & Hot Tub streams are being recommended despite only watching game streams. Now that's probably because they have high engagement and sub activity, but they or any category could just as well be influencing employees.

lucideer 4y ago
For this particular category I think there's going to be a lot more contributing variables than for gambling. Not only would it have high engagement and sub activity but: - a lot of the streamers also game - even if they don't, there are streamer cliques and social groups which are primarily gaming, of which they're a part - a lot of viewers who only watch gaming will watch some streamer within the aforementioned clique/social group and be exposed to crossovers - a lot of the viewers of that category also watch gaming streamers, so this will put those streams in the "people who watch this also watch" algorithmic bucket None of the above are significantly the case for gambling except maybe the last one, and even then much less so.
sam0x17 4y ago
The decision happened literally live while Hasan was talking about how terrible it is that gambling content is still allowed on Twitch in front of an enormous audience so I'm inclined to believe this exposure forced their hand on a decision they were already considering making, probably for a while.
rstat1 4y ago
>A lot of gamers say that Pool & Hot Tub streams are being recommended despite only watching game streams In my experience, Twitch recommendations seem to be based heavily on what you watch, so if that's what they're seeing its probably because they watched it at some point.
- boesboes 4y ago
  Not if you don't use twitch much I think. I've only ever watched MTG tournaments and a handful of replays of factorio & pokemon streams. I too get the hottub streams recommended from time to time. Stopped after I reported it as porn a few times, but that might be a coincidence.
nemothekid 4y ago
>A lot of gamers say that Pool & Hot Tub streams are being recommended despite only watching game streams. Some hot tub streamers regularly get 10k+ viewers. If that viewer base overlaps with $your_favorite_streamer, then you will get hot tub streamer recommended. That said, I personally don't see problem with hot tub streamers; it seems like incredibly puritanical moral panic for some reason and I don't know why that gets so much attention in 2022.
- bakugo 4y ago
  Some of us like to use twitch to see people playing games (you know, its original intended purpose) and when half of the front page is glorified camgirls, it undermines that. More and more streamers are abandoning games and going for boring IRL garbage instead because that's what Twitch promotes.
  - williamscales 4y ago
    I don't have a horse in this race, but Twitch's "original intended purpose" was not just gaming. It was called justin.tv and over time the gaming category became very active. Later they refocused on gaming.
    - iotku 4y ago
      Twitch's original purpose was splintering off the gaming section of justin.tv (a general streaming site) onto a separate website specifically for gaming content. They never refocused on gaming as that was the entire focus of the site's creation. During the early days any non-gaming content was strictly prohibited on Twitch. For a while justin.tv and twitch coexisted, with justin.tv for general content such as "social streams" (equivalent to "Just Chatting" on modern day Twitch) and largely streams of copyrighted content such as tv shows (an obvious liability). Prior to Amazon purchasing Twitch, justin.tv was shut down and a lot of the general "social" content started becoming allowable on Twitch over time.
  - nemothekid 4y ago
    >and when half of the front page is glorified camgirls, it undermines that. Half of the front page has never been glorified camgirls. This is just more moral panic. Amouranth is practically the only streamer who is pulling enough numbers to be in the top 10 of any section. The featured section of twitch has never featured hot tub streams. Of the top 5 hot tub streamers, as of writing, the top one with 800 viewers are otters (like the animal), 1 is a vtuber and another is a man. The issue is incredibly overblown. Amouranth is the only one doing numbers regularly. >More and more streamers are abandoning games and going for boring IRL garbage instead because that's what Twitch promotes. That has nothing to do with hot tub streamers. Kai Cenat and Adin Ross are some of the largest growing streamers in the past year, and they are primary Just Chatting streamers. This really just feels like you are complaining about Eternal September. It sounds like you just don't like that the world is changing. "Old man yells at cloud". >Some of us like to use twitch to see people playing games Some of the largest streamers on Twitch don't play games. Expecting twitch to remain some "insider only country club for video games" is ridiculous. No one is forcing you to watch hot tub streams. Getting recommended a titty streamer won't kill you. It really just comes across that you are mad that there are women on the platform doing stuff you don't like. It's arbitrary censorship; I doubt you would accept this kind of censorship on any other platform. And even then, when you look at the hard numbers for these titty streamers it's incredibly hard to take the moral panic seriously. Amouranth is only one doing numbers (and she is literally an outlier, I believe she is like top 10 on onlyfans as well) and the rest have fewer viewers than a Zoo's livestream.
steveklabnik 4y ago
My understanding is that this is not the catalyst. The catalyst involves a bunch of drama between various streamers, which led to the revelation that a particular Twitch streamer had fraudulently asked to borrow something like $350,000 from various other streamers and viewers, and had gambled it all away. Once that happened, a bunch of influential streamers started to suggest that they may do a strike if Twitch didn't address the issue, and that was the final straw. TechCruch's writeup is pretty good https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/20/twitch-sliker-gambling-drama/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/20/twitch-sliker-gambling-dra... (though also, the article itself covers this, so, you know...)
- throw101010 4y ago
  You are right about this event being the catalyst. The funniest part is that the person who scammed and alledgedly spent it all on gambling did it on sports betting... which is specifically excluded from the ban on gambling by Twitch. And the very likely reason for the exception is that Twitch has signed a 13 billion deal with a famous sport betting company tied to the NFL. This is peak hypocrisy from Twitch and it seems to get very little media coverage.
stale2002 4y ago
> It's odd because any category of streamer could be paying employees large sums of money to recommend them. No, they couldn't. That is nonsense. I am a former twitch employee, of 4 years, and the recommendation algorithm is a complicated service, managed by whole teams of people. A random employee couldn't just take a bribe, and get someone recommended. The closest that someone could maybe do, is submit someone internally, to be hosted on the front page carousel for one specific day, for a few hours. But even these manual requests are reviewed by a team of people, who especially make sure the front page people are brand safe. So the idea that they would put a "hot tub" streamer, on that manual hosting list is absurd.
debacle 4y ago
It came out recently that a streamer exchanged lewd photos of herself for a ban on one of her "competitors." Twitch has some serious, serious problems.

lucideer 4y ago

For this particular category I think there's going to be a lot more contributing variables than for gambling. Not only would it have high engagement and sub activity but: - a lot of the streamers also game - even if they don't, there are streamer cliques and social groups which are primarily gaming, of which they're a part - a lot of viewers who only watch gaming will watch some streamer within the aforementioned clique/social group and be exposed to crossovers - a lot of the viewers of that category also watch gaming streamers, so this will put those streams in the "people who watch this also watch" algorithmic bucket None of the above are significantly the case for gambling except maybe the last one, and even then much less so.

sam0x17 4y ago

The decision happened literally live while Hasan was talking about how terrible it is that gambling content is still allowed on Twitch in front of an enormous audience so I'm inclined to believe this exposure forced their hand on a decision they were already considering making, probably for a while.

rstat1 4y ago

>A lot of gamers say that Pool & Hot Tub streams are being recommended despite only watching game streams In my experience, Twitch recommendations seem to be based heavily on what you watch, so if that's what they're seeing its probably because they watched it at some point.

boesboes 4y ago
Not if you don't use twitch much I think. I've only ever watched MTG tournaments and a handful of replays of factorio & pokemon streams. I too get the hottub streams recommended from time to time. Stopped after I reported it as porn a few times, but that might be a coincidence.

nemothekid 4y ago

>A lot of gamers say that Pool & Hot Tub streams are being recommended despite only watching game streams. Some hot tub streamers regularly get 10k+ viewers. If that viewer base overlaps with $your_favorite_streamer, then you will get hot tub streamer recommended. That said, I personally don't see problem with hot tub streamers; it seems like incredibly puritanical moral panic for some reason and I don't know why that gets so much attention in 2022.

bakugo 4y ago
Some of us like to use twitch to see people playing games (you know, its original intended purpose) and when half of the front page is glorified camgirls, it undermines that. More and more streamers are abandoning games and going for boring IRL garbage instead because that's what Twitch promotes.
- williamscales 4y ago
  I don't have a horse in this race, but Twitch's "original intended purpose" was not just gaming. It was called justin.tv and over time the gaming category became very active. Later they refocused on gaming.
  - iotku 4y ago
    Twitch's original purpose was splintering off the gaming section of justin.tv (a general streaming site) onto a separate website specifically for gaming content. They never refocused on gaming as that was the entire focus of the site's creation. During the early days any non-gaming content was strictly prohibited on Twitch. For a while justin.tv and twitch coexisted, with justin.tv for general content such as "social streams" (equivalent to "Just Chatting" on modern day Twitch) and largely streams of copyrighted content such as tv shows (an obvious liability). Prior to Amazon purchasing Twitch, justin.tv was shut down and a lot of the general "social" content started becoming allowable on Twitch over time.
- nemothekid 4y ago
  >and when half of the front page is glorified camgirls, it undermines that. Half of the front page has never been glorified camgirls. This is just more moral panic. Amouranth is practically the only streamer who is pulling enough numbers to be in the top 10 of any section. The featured section of twitch has never featured hot tub streams. Of the top 5 hot tub streamers, as of writing, the top one with 800 viewers are otters (like the animal), 1 is a vtuber and another is a man. The issue is incredibly overblown. Amouranth is the only one doing numbers regularly. >More and more streamers are abandoning games and going for boring IRL garbage instead because that's what Twitch promotes. That has nothing to do with hot tub streamers. Kai Cenat and Adin Ross are some of the largest growing streamers in the past year, and they are primary Just Chatting streamers. This really just feels like you are complaining about Eternal September. It sounds like you just don't like that the world is changing. "Old man yells at cloud". >Some of us like to use twitch to see people playing games Some of the largest streamers on Twitch don't play games. Expecting twitch to remain some "insider only country club for video games" is ridiculous. No one is forcing you to watch hot tub streams. Getting recommended a titty streamer won't kill you. It really just comes across that you are mad that there are women on the platform doing stuff you don't like. It's arbitrary censorship; I doubt you would accept this kind of censorship on any other platform. And even then, when you look at the hard numbers for these titty streamers it's incredibly hard to take the moral panic seriously. Amouranth is only one doing numbers (and she is literally an outlier, I believe she is like top 10 on onlyfans as well) and the rest have fewer viewers than a Zoo's livestream.

steveklabnik 4y ago

My understanding is that this is not the catalyst. The catalyst involves a bunch of drama between various streamers, which led to the revelation that a particular Twitch streamer had fraudulently asked to borrow something like $350,000 from various other streamers and viewers, and had gambled it all away. Once that happened, a bunch of influential streamers started to suggest that they may do a strike if Twitch didn't address the issue, and that was the final straw. TechCruch's writeup is pretty good https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/20/twitch-sliker-gambling-drama/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/20/twitch-sliker-gambling-dra... (though also, the article itself covers this, so, you know...)

throw101010 4y ago
You are right about this event being the catalyst. The funniest part is that the person who scammed and alledgedly spent it all on gambling did it on sports betting... which is specifically excluded from the ban on gambling by Twitch. And the very likely reason for the exception is that Twitch has signed a 13 billion deal with a famous sport betting company tied to the NFL. This is peak hypocrisy from Twitch and it seems to get very little media coverage.

stale2002 4y ago

> It's odd because any category of streamer could be paying employees large sums of money to recommend them. No, they couldn't. That is nonsense. I am a former twitch employee, of 4 years, and the recommendation algorithm is a complicated service, managed by whole teams of people. A random employee couldn't just take a bribe, and get someone recommended. The closest that someone could maybe do, is submit someone internally, to be hosted on the front page carousel for one specific day, for a few hours. But even these manual requests are reviewed by a team of people, who especially make sure the front page people are brand safe. So the idea that they would put a "hot tub" streamer, on that manual hosting list is absurd.

debacle 4y ago

It came out recently that a streamer exchanged lewd photos of herself for a ban on one of her "competitors." Twitch has some serious, serious problems.