Attendees pass in front of TVs showing live views of Twitch Interactive’s video service during the E3 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles.
Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Twitch, Amazon’s proprietary video streaming platform used primarily by gamers to broadcast their games, announced on Wednesday a new policy authorizing the company to take action against users who display certain harmful behaviors completely offline. .
The policy represents a unique approach among social media peers at a time when the industry has been under increasing pressure to implement strong and consistent content moderation policies. Because lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have threatened to remove online platforms from their liability protections under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, many platforms have taken steps to place barriers. stronger security about what users can post.
Under the new policy, Twitch can suspend users for an indefinite period of time after an external investigator determines that there is strong evidence that the person has had certain offline behaviors. These actions include engaging in deadly violence, terrorist activities, preparing children for sexual exploitation, committing sexual assault, or even “acting as an accomplice in non-consensual sexual activities.” It will also continue to consider offline harassment in cases where a user alleges online abuse.
Twitch said he will work with “an experienced law firm in investigations” to determine the validity of claims, which will sometimes depend on access to law enforcement evidence. The company said it would not take action on behalf of a user until the investigation was completed and evidence of wrongdoing was confirmed.
Harmful offline behaviors do not need to involve another Twitch user to be considered an infringement, a spokesman confirmed. This is based on the idea that people involved in such behaviors are more likely to create security risks for the Twitch community, the spokesman added.
Other social networking platforms also take into account the real-world damage spread by users to their platforms, but Twitch’s new policy is unique for its explicitness when it comes to tackling completely offline behavior and for some of the types of offline behavior it prohibits. For example, Facebook’s community rules prevent mass killers and members of terrorist, hate, criminal, or human trafficking organizations from having any kind of presence on their platforms. Twitch’s policy includes other offline behaviors that may not be part of an organized criminal group, such as sexual assault.
Social networking platforms often base most of their application actions on the damage from the content that is actually posted to their services. While they may take real-world events into account when assessing damage, they typically point to publications on their own platforms as a point of action.
Even when Facebook and Twitter decided to ban former President Donald Trump from his services after the U.S. Capitol insurgency on Jan. 6, his reasoning was fundamentally rooted in the ways they said he used or could use the their platforms to incite violence. .
Twitch’s new approach comes as a result of a broader discussion of how certain real-world events are to be handled by technology platforms. Last month, a Business Insider investigation revealed a woman’s accusation against Dominykas Zeglaitis, a member of the so-called Vlog Squad, led by popular vlogger David Dobrik. The unnamed woman said Zeglaitis sexually assaulted her the night she and her friends appeared in one of the group’s videos, when she said she was too intoxicated to give her consent. Zeglaitis declined to comment on the allegations to Insider.
Google-owned YouTube said that after the report, it would temporarily prevent Dobrik from monetizing his account through ads. YouTube policies for creators say that off-platform behavior, including violence or cruelty, can lead to penalties, such as missing promotional opportunities or making your videos appear in recommendations for users.
While Twitch will initially address a handful of serious violations, the platform said it intends the guidelines to be iterative. Because offline damage can be difficult to verify, the company prioritized categories that it felt would be most detrimental to its community.
Users who wish to confidentially report offline damages that fall into the categories prohibited by Twitch can email [email protected].
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