July 20, 2025

Twitch Cracks Down on Hate Speech and Harassment

Other social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, have also been under pressure to remove hate speech and misinformation.

Kenzie Gordon, a Ph.D. student at the University of Alberta who studies how games can be used to prevent sexual and domestic violence, said the new policies appeared to be “very thorough and comprehensive.” But how they are enforced, she said, will determine whether they are effective.

“By making creators responsible for moderating the policy on their own channels, they have put most of the work of enforcement onto people who were already vulnerable to abuse,” Ms. Gordon said of Twitch. “We’ll have to see how effectively they support streamers who are trying to stop abuse on their channels.”

Twitch has had a banner year. With the coronavirus pandemic forcing people to remain indoors, many have sought out online entertainment such as streaming video games. Twitch now averages 26.5 million daily viewers, up from 17.5 million at the beginning of the year, it said.

As the community has grown and become more global, Ms. Clemens said, it is important for Twitch to ensure that its policies reflect societal norms.

Many streamers earn a living from Twitch, with some making more than $1 million a year through subscriptions, donations and advertisements on the service. Because of that, Ms. Clemens said, Twitch users should keep a “workplace-style” approach in mind when considering what comments might amount to harassment.

Other changes include codifying and spelling out more explicitly the kinds of content and actions that were already unofficially prohibited. These include blackface, doxxing — publishing personally identifying information like someone’s phone number online — and hate group propaganda, such as symbols associated with the Nazi Party or white supremacist groups.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/technology/twitch-harassment-policy.html

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