Gaming News After a night and day of excess, Twitch looks back on “artistic nudity.”
On Wednesday, Twitch clarified its rules on artistic representation of nudity, saying streamers and artists were being overly penalized by current rules. But 36 hours after the rule change, Twitch backed down.
After much debate, Twitch opened up to real nudity
Twitch recently updated its terms of service, offering a new approach to sexual content. Lots of streamers, with Morgpie, who was at the top of the list, thought the rules were too vague, leading to incomprehensible approval or ban decisions. In response, Twitch relaxed its rules, particularly regarding artistic or virtual representations of nudity. The installation of a warning banner was then mandatory, as was a clear description of the content and the use of the “sexual themes” tag. The following were therefore authorized:
- Content that intentionally highlights breasts, buttocks, or pelvic area, even when the person is clothed.
- Fully exposed female breasts and/or buttocks or genitals, depicted in a fictional manner (drawn, animated or sculpted), regardless of gender.
- Bodywriting on female buttocks and/or breasts, regardless of gender.
- Erotic dances that involve undressing or simulating movements, such as striptease.
Immediately, A lot of streams have appeared, which show naked, almost naked people or explicit drawings. Content that “Consciously emphasize the breasts, buttocks or pelvic region“approved provided that the prevention regulations are adhered to, many of them appeared. Dances such as striptease were also tolerated. As for other dances like twerk or pole dancing, they were approved unless they are “distributed”.Adult entertainment facilities“.
Rules that seem clearer but raise new questions
In principle everything was simpler, but in reality things have become more complex. Games with nudity, pornography or sexual violence remained banned. Additionally, alerts only work when a stream is clicked. The homepage thumbnails remain very clear as they are captured from the ongoing live stream
The most viewed streams in the Twitch art directory. 13+ page by the way.
In addition to this homepage problem, many observers have pointed out the appearance of so-called artistic content the characters had the traits of underage people. Lives that, despite their fictional or artistic nature, flirted with the rules of child pornography.
36 hours later, Twitch backed down
In summary, the last 36 hours have been very complicated what advantages and abuses these new rules could bring. The “party” was short-lived as Twitch simply “backed out,” as announced in a blog post by Dan Clancy:
(…) Our main goal in making these updates was to make our instructions more understandable and applicable. Part of this update included changes to the way we handle fictional nudity. For years, artists have told us on UserVoice and in conversations that our content policies are restrictive. With this update, we sought to respond to these requests and give Twitch’s growing community of artists the opportunity to use the human form in their art. First, we want to clarify that in response to this update, some streamers have created content that violates our new guidelines. We worked quickly to remove this content and implement channel enforcement measures. (…)
In response to the feedback, Twitch believes it “too far“Digital representation of nudity poses a challenge”unique“. In the crosshairs, AI, the “can be used to create realistic images“disturb the border”between digital art and photography“.Specifically, Twitch is once again banning real or fictional depictions of nudity, regardless of medium. This regression does not affect adult-only games. However, non-English speaking steamers are asked to wait, The new guidelines must be translated correctly.
