Following a reported outpouring of “community concern” against the controversial change to their primarily teenage male-occupied platform, Twitch has announced that they will be doing a full 180 regarding its recent relaxing of its sexual content policies.
First unveiled on December 13th in an ostensible attempt to protect the predatory practices of the sexually explicit female streamers who constitute one of their biggest revenue streams, said modifications to Twitch’s policies declared that “some types of content that were prohibited will now be allowed on Twitch, if appropriately labeled.”
Under this new policy, Twitch now allowed for “content that ‘deliberately highlighted breasts, buttocks or pelvic region” – this first change specifically made because the site believed “the former Sexually Suggestive Content policy was out of line with industry standards and resulted in female-presenting streamers being disproportionately penalized” – “body-writing on female-presenting breasts and/or buttocks regardless off gender,” “fictionalized (drawn, animated, or sculpted) fully exposed female-presenting breasts and/or genitals or buttocks regardless of gender”, and “erotic dances that involve disrobing or disrobing gestures, such as strip teases,” to be streamed on the site as long as it was labeled with a ‘Sexual Content’ tag.
Meanwhile, so-called “popular dances, such as twerking, grinding, and pole dancing” no longer required any explicit tagging whatsoever.
However, these exploitative allowances were ultimately not long for this world, as just two days after they were announced, the site’s administration undertook a full reversal of their above loosening of their rules.
“Our primary goal in making these updates was to make our guidelines easier to understand and enforce,” explained Twitch CEO Dan Clancy in a December 15th blog post explaining the site’s internal thought process. “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.”
Noting how much of the “[new content] created [under the updated policy had] been met with community concern,” Clancy then admitted, “These are concerns we share. Upon reflection, we have decided that we went too far with this change.”
To this end, the Twitch executive revealed, “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.”
Offering two further clarifications regarding this reversal, Clancy affirmed both that “this restriction does not apply to Mature-rated games,” and “we aren’t making other changes to the updated Sexual Content Policy”.
“It will take a few days for both this blog and for the new Community Guidelines to be translated,” concluded Clancy. “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.”
