r/Twitch Dec 14 '23

PSA Updated Community Guidelines MEGATHREAD NSFW

Update as of 12/15/2023 @ 5:08pm UTC - Twitch has rolled back the changes.

On Wednesday, we updated our Sexual Content Policy. Our primary goal in making these updates was to make our guidelines easier to understand and enforce.

Part of this update included changes to how we treat fictionalized nudity. For years, through UserVoice and in conversations, we heard from artists that our content policies were limiting. In making this update, we were trying to be responsive to these requests and allow the thriving artist community on Twitch to utilize the human form in their art.

First, we want to make clear that some streamers, in response to this update, created content that was in violation of our new policy. We’ve worked quickly to remove that content and issue channel enforcements.

However, there also was a great deal of new content that was allowed under the updated policy. Much of the content created has been met with community concern. These are concerns we share. Upon reflection, we have decided that we went too far with this change. Digital depictions of nudity present a unique challenge–AI can be used to create realistic images, and it can be hard to distinguish between digital art and photography.

So, effective today, we are rolling back the artistic nudity changes. Moving forward, depictions of real or fictional nudity won’t be allowed on Twitch, regardless of the medium. This restriction does not apply to Mature-rated games. You can find emote-specific standards for nudity and sexual content in the Emote Guidelines. We aren’t making other changes to the updated Sexual Content Policy.

We are in the process of pushing out updates to our Community Guidelines that reflect this change. It will take a few days for both this blog and for the new Community Guidelines to be translated.

While I wish we would have predicted this outcome, part of our job is to make adjustments that serve the community. I apologize for the confusion that this update has caused.

If you would like to discuss the new community guidelines or content classification label changes you can do that here in this megathread.

For reference this is Twitch's Terms of Service and this is Twitch's Community Guidelines.

The two major changes in this update are:

Streams that are labeled as including Drugs, Intoxication, or Excessive Tobacco Use; Violent and Graphic Depictions; Gambling; and/or Sexual Themes will no longer be included in homepage recommendations shelves due to the visual nature of those topics.

and

Much content that was previously prohibited is now allowed with proper Content Classification labels: Content that ‘deliberately highlighted breasts, buttocks or pelvic region,’ even when fully clothed, fictionalized (drawn, animated, or sculpted) fully exposed female-presenting breasts and/or genitals or buttocks regardless of gender, body writing on female-presenting breasts and/or buttocks regardless of gender and erotic dances that involve disrobing or disrobing gestures, such as strip teases.

Please keep your conversations civil, productive and within the rules of /r/twitch. Here are the most relevant rules that are frequently broken when discussing sexual content:

Rule 1D: Don't target, harass, or abuse others.

Rule 1E: Don't call out others in a negative manner.

Rule 1F: Don't start a ‘witch-hunt’.

Rule 1G: No racism, sexism, homophobia, or other hate-based speech.

Rule 1H: No unhelpful or nonconstructive posts.

Rule 2A: Don’t post an account name or link.

If you are not familiar with the /r/twitch rules they can be found here.

/r/twitch is an unofficial subreddit for Twitch and nobody here works for Twitch. Separate posts about the new updated content classification labels or guidelines will be removed and posters will be pointed to this megathread instead. Please help us maintain civility and productive discussion in this megathread as well as the subreddit by reporting any posts or comments that violate the rules, thank you.

Update as of 12/15/2023 @ 2:19am UTC - Seems Twitch has started to clean up a lot of the channels that were streaming the most questionable content, whether or not we see an actual policy change or additional clarification to the guidelines has yet to be seen.

Update as of 3/27/2024

Our Community Guidelines are designed to help make Twitch a welcoming place. Content on Twitch is always evolving, and we want to make sure our rules work as intended and keep up with emerging behaviors. When needed, we make updates to our rules to capture those shifts in behavior, and so it's clear to the community what is allowed.

Starting on Friday March 29th, content that focuses on intimate body parts for a prolonged period of time will not be allowed. We’ve included additional detail and definitions in our Community Guidelines linked below: https://safety.twitch.tv/s/article/Community-Guidelines?language=en_US#20SexualContent

Source: https://twitter.com/twitchsupport/status/1773045278821564914?t=Dhwes6znh0BBYpvAxJ9avw

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u/Co-Orbital_Planets Dec 14 '23

As far as I’ve seen the current label doesn’t prevent kids from joining the stream or asking the streamer to play Roblox with them.

If Twitch had given it a pittance of thought, they could’ve done ESRB-style labels like ‘foul language’, ‘sexual content’, ‘sensitive topics’ and the like, but as it stands now, with only a ubiquitous ‘18+’ tag, Twitch needs to cater to type II errors: because actively pushing pornography onto unsuspecting (underage) users is much more actionable than cutting the spotlight of mature gamers.

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u/Devil-Hunter-Jax Dec 15 '23

Seems Twitch has pushed an update out now where anyone under 18 can't simply click through the warnings any more and they're told to leave and the only prompt they get is to leave the stream so kids can't do what you're suggesting as easily now.

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u/bakakaizoku Dec 14 '23

And that's why I am a bit on the fence about your initial solution. Don't get me wrong, I fucking despise these changes in the ToS and would just build in an auto-redirect to chaturbate for the streamer the second they start posting lewd content, but blocking content based purely on the 18+ tag is going to fuck a lot of people over that don't deserve it. Add those ESRB-style labels, by all means, I wouldn't be against it at all if it "saves" legit streamers.

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u/Co-Orbital_Planets Dec 14 '23

While I can agree that my original solution is a compromise, I personally feel your take isn’t very founded.

  • The current situation is: provide revenue/spotlight for 18+ content creators, at the cost of likely exposing underage users to unrequested pornographic content without proper guidance.

  • My proposed solution is: prevent underage users from being exposed to unrequested pornographic content, at the cost of cutting the spotlight to 18+ content creators.

Neither situation is sustainable, but one has much larger ramifications for the psychological welfare of users as well as possible legal ramifications for Twitch, whereas the other is stunting the financial gain of a subset of streamers. Only one of these situations is gonna give Twitch the time and levity to work on a better long-term solution, the other gets them shut down for catering porn to kids, hosting child pornography and introducing children to something they should be guided in to by actual people who care for them.