Twitch users can now face punitive action from the service for actions that occurred offline, on other platforms, or before starting to use Twitch.
Amazon-owned Twitch announced the changes in a post on their official blog, titled Our plan to deal with serious out-of-service misconduct.
This follows updates to the Hateful Conduct and Harassment Service Policy took effect on January 22, as good as November meeting Angela Hession, former head of game security and trust at Microsoft, as vice president of trust and security at Twitch.
Under the new rules, Twitch may take action against users of its service for hateful conduct or harassment that occurs outside of the Twitch services, when directed or committed by members of the Twitch community and where there are abuses. verifiable evidence available on the subject.
To this end, Twitch has created a dedicated email address, [email protected], for confidential reports of misconduct by Twitch account holders. It also brought in an anonymous law firm with expertise in conducting independent workplace and campus investigations, and increased the size of its internal enforcement response team. the law.
In January, we started implementing our updated Hateful Conduct and Harassment Policy to better protect everyone on Twitch.
Today we want to share our plans on how to handle incidents that occur on Twitch.
Read the blog here: https://t.co/vBnoY6nPau pic.twitter.com/KQX1ZBsRVg
Twitch (@Twitch) April 7, 2021
There is room to be cynical here. Twitch has been known in the past for an inconsistent or completely missing app within its community, such as how it took until 2020 for Dr. Disrespect eat a permanent ban. Last summer, a number of Twitch streamers partnered up stopped broadcasting for 24 hours under the hashtag #TwitchBlackout, to protest Twitch’s lack of action against discrimination and harassment on its platform.
However, its new policies represent a big step forward in overall content moderation for Twitch, even compared to comparable sites like YouTube, and are unique in terms of targeting offline behavior.
The Twitchs blog post is careful to state that the misconduct targeted by this measure is anything that poses a substantial security risk to Twitchs users and the Twitch community. Examples include, and are not limited to violent extremism, terrorist recruitment, leadership or membership in known hate groups, sexual assault, and credible threats of violence against Twitch itself or its staff.
Twitch further encourages its users who have encountered this type of behavior from other Twitch users to file law enforcement reports first, rather than simply having the offender kicked off Twitch and qualify it as good.
If someone has violated these guidelines, Twitch’s punitive actions can begin with an indefinite suspension for a first violation. The policy continues by specifying that a person who has committed a relevant violation, such as a form of serious abuse, can obtain the termination of their account, and will subsequently be prohibited from registering a new account.
Twitch further promises that it will only take action when it has received evidence for an account holder’s actions, such as screenshots, interviews, videos or police reports, and when its principal investigators or third parties will have been able to verify this evidence.
Given its meteoric rise and growing importance over the past year, it may be that Twitch is finally pulling its own steam here, or maybe just trying to avoid disruption as more and more US lawmakers keep attacking section 230.
