• Following outcry about nearly nude streamers on the front page, Twitch is amending its policies.
• Rather than banning nudity and suggestive content, Twitch has embraced and it simply asked that streamers label their content accordingly.
• The streaming platform will, however, use those labels to keep that content off of its front page.

Over the many years of the existence of Twitch, streamers have pushed the envelope of what is and isn’t acceptable on the platform. The hot-tub stream era tested the limits in years prior and this month a new trend emerged where female streamers appeared on stream topless.

Mind you, the streamers were careful to position their cameras in such a way that there was no full frontal nudity. This triggered an outcry from users concerned about children who may encounter these streams alongside games about war, death, drugs and more.

To address this outcry, Twitch has decided to amend its policy about sexual content.

“We have received consistent feedback from streamers that our current policies around sexual content are confusing and that it can be difficult to know how their content will be interpreted based on these policies. We want streamers to feel confident they understand our rules and viewers to feel confident they will get the experience they expect,” Chief Customer Trust Officer at Twitch Angela Hession wrote.

Moving forward, Twitch’s Sexually Suggestive Content and Sexually Explicit Content policies will be combined into one Sexual Content Policy which defines what types of sexual content is and isn’t allowed on Twitch.

Content that was previously disallowed on Twitch, but is now permissible, includes:

• Content that ‘deliberately highlighted breasts, buttocks or pelvic region,’ even when fully clothed. Streamers found it difficult to determine what was prohibited and what was allowed and often evaluating whether or not a stream violated this portion of the policy was subjective. In addition, the former Sexually Suggestive Content policy was out of line with industry standards and resulted in female-presenting streamers being disproportionately penalized. 
• Fictionalised (drawn, animated, or sculpted) fully exposed female-presenting breasts and/or genitals or buttocks regardless of gender. There is a thriving artist community on Twitch, and this policy was overly punitive and did not reflect the impact of the content.
• Body writing on female-presenting breasts and/or buttocks regardless of gender. The Twitch Attire Policy already allows body art on breasts and buttocks, so this change makes these policies consistent.
• Erotic dances that involve disrobing or disrobing gestures, such as strip teases. 
• Popular dances, such as twerking, grinding, and pole dancing are now allowed without a label. Previously some dances were prohibited and others were allowed with a label. Enforcing on dances regardless of context meant our policy prohibited twerking at a wedding or taking a pole dancing exercise class, for example. The policy now takes context into consideration, and only prohibits streaming inside of an adult entertainment establishment.

As for those who are worried about what children may see, Twitch has now said that streams labelled as including, “Drugs, Intoxication, or Excessive Tobacco Use; Violent and Graphic Depictions; Gambling; and/or Sexual Themes” won’t appear on the front page anymore.

“Viewers can still search for, or go directly to channels they follow that are streaming labeled content via the left bar of the home page, but streams using these labels will not be surfaced in homepage recommendations shelves. Streams with these labels will still be included in Category page recommendations so viewers can navigate to the appropriate category for this content,” writes Hessian.

The platform outlines several FAQs streamers and viewers may have about this policy update over on this blog but also notes that it is watching for feedback from those using the platform.

We’re curious to see how this impacts Twitch in the future and how the platform evolves from here.

There is concern that Twitch is becoming too sexual, but that could be said for any social network. By allowing streamers to be more sexual on the platform and asking them to label it, gives Twitch more control over how or how not to surface this content.