Twitch was released today its first transparency report detailing its efforts to safeguard the 26 million people who visit its site daily. In terms of transparency, Amazon’s ten-year-old proprietary service had a long way to go.
Twitch benefited from a 40% increase in channels between early and late 2020, driven by the popularity of both live streaming technology and video games throughout the pandemic. This explosive growth, however, is also also the company’s biggest challenge in eliminating harassment and hatred. Unlike recorded videos, live content is often spontaneous and ephemeral. Things only happen in front of a live audience of thousands or tens of thousands. This can include anything from 11-year-olds going on to playing live Minecraft—Exposing them to potential predators— to the famous Guy “Dr. Disrespect” Beahm, who is already banned from a public bathroom at E3.
In its new transparency report, Twitch acknowledges this difficulty and offers for the first time specific details on how to moderate its platform. While the findings are encouraging, what has historically not been transparent speaks equally loudly.
At first, Twitch earned a reputation for being a center of toxicity. The women and minorities they broadcast on the platform received targeted hatred from hostile audiences to people who believed they were deviating from the stereotypes of the players. Twitch’s vague guidelines around so-called “sexually suggestive” content served as fuel for the self-proclaimed anti-boob police to massively denounce Twitch women. Volunteer moderators watched Twitch’s quick chat to kick off the harassment. And for problematic streamers, Twitch relied on user reports.
In 2016, Twitch introduced an AutoMod tool, now enabled by default for all accounts, that blocks what your AI considers inappropriate messages from readers. Like other large platforms, Twitch also relies on machine learning to mark potentially problematic content for human review. Twitch has invested in human moderators to review tagged content as well. However, a 2019 Anti-Defamation League study found that nearly half of Twitch users surveyed reported being harassed. And a 2020 GamesIndustry.Biz report cited several Twitch employees describing how company executives did not prioritize security tools and were despised for hate speech concerns.
All this time, Twitch did not have a transparency report to make clear its policies and internal operation for a user base that is being abused. In an interview with ONLINE, Twitch’s new head of trust and security, Angela Hession, says that in 2020, security was Twitch’s “number one investment”.
Over the years, Twitch has learned that harassers in bad faith can arm their vague community rules, and in 2020 released updated versions of its guidelines on “Nudity and Clothing,” “Terrorism and Extreme Violence,” and “Harassment and hateful behavior. ” Last year, Twitch appointed an eight-person safety advisory board, made up of streamers, school bullying experts and social media researchers, to draft policies aimed at improving safety and moderation and healthy transmission habits. .
Last fall Twitch brought in Hession, formerly head of Xbox security. Under Hession, Twitch finally banned depictions of the Confederate flag and the black face. She says Twitch is on fire and there is a great opportunity to imagine the security aspect there. “Twitch is a service created to encourage users to feel comfortable expressing themselves and entertaining each other,” he says, “but we also want our community to always be and feel safe.” Hession says Twitch has increased its content moderators four times over the past year.
Twitch’s transparency report serves back the victory of its recent moderation efforts. AutoMod or active moderators touched more than 95 percent of Twitch content during the second half of 2020, the company reports. People who reported receiving harassment via Twitch’s direct message decreased by 70 percent in the same period. Enforcement shares increased by 788,000 in early 2020 to 1.1 million in late 2020, which Twitch says reflects its increase in users. User reports also increased during this time, from 5.9 million to 7.4 million, which Twitch attributes to its growth. The same goes for its channel bans, which went from 2.3 million to 3.9 million.