Warning: Live Streaming Platform Twitch Now Allows Nudity on Site
By Movieguide® Contributor
Twitch, a popular live-streaming platform, has made a change in its sexual content policy, broadening its tolerance for nudity on the site.
“There is a thriving artist community on Twitch, and this policy was overtly punitive and did not reflect the impact of the content,” the company said about the change.
Under the new guidelines, “artistic” depictions of nudity – those drawn, animated or sculpted – are now permitted. Artists on the site can now show “fully exposed female-presenting breasts and/or genitals or buttocks regardless of gender.” Art of overt sexual acts – including masturbation – however, remains banned on the site.
The new guidelines also loosened the rules on streamers themselves, now allowing for content that “deliberately highlight[s] breasts, buttocks or [the] pelvic region,” along with body painting on “female presenting breasts and/or buttocks regardless of gender.” Sexual dances, such as “twerking, grinding and pole dancing,” are also now permitted.
These guideline changes come as the platform overhauls its age rating system. Previously, streams would be rated “M” for mature along with similar classifications for specific ages. Now, streams are specifically labeled for drug use, gambling, violence and sexual themes.
This new system, Twitch argues, allows viewers to have a better understanding of the content they will be viewing before they enter the stream. For mature labels, viewers have to explicitly state that they want to view the content before they are brought into the stream.
Twitch also keeps any stream with a mature label from its front page in an attempt to mitigate the impact it may have on the broader community regardless of its popularity.
These changes to the guidelines are abhorrent as they will allow extremely sexual content to reach countless kids. Twitch is the primary landing spot for anyone interested in live streaming, particularly for gaming. Millions of people visit the site every day and will now face the real likelihood of viewing sexual content every time they log onto the site.
Sexual content has already plagued the site for years as streamers seek to exploit their sexuality for popularity. Some of the largest streamers are popular primarily for their sex appeal which they have only made stronger through trends like hot tub streams where they stream in a bathing suit.
Furthermore, many of these creators use Twitch as a touchpoint for their overtly sexual content, such as OnlyFans, which they have funneled hundreds of thousands of people towards under the old, stricter guidelines.
Raising the tolerance for sexual content will only make these problems worse and will encourage more streamers to exploit their sexuality in even cruder ways to push their popularity higher.
These changes will also hurt non-sexual streamers who will likely face higher rates of sexual harassment as more people come to the site for the sake of sexual content. Sexual harassment has been a longstanding problem on the site, and was one of the major factors in Amazon, Twitch’s parent company, landing at the top of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation’s Dirty Dozen list in 2021.
Parents should more than ever be weary of their children watching live streams on Twitch and should closely monitor the content they are viewing.
Movieguide® previously reported:
The report showed that the commerce and entertainment giant made the list due to nudity on Amazon Prime Video and its social media, Twitch.
“The problem is that Amazon’s Twitch is rife with sexual harassment, predatory grooming and child sexual abuse,” Nealon said explained. “There are frequent conversations between children and strangers, with strangers daring kids to do explicit acts or to share their contact information.”
The report also noted that Amazon Prime’s parental controls were insufficient to protect children from gratuitous content.
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