Twitch’s rules on suggestive content have been under scrutiny this year, largely due to the emergence of the hot tub ‘meta’. Streamer Annie Fuchsia has gone viral with an interesting take on how more lax rules about this content could have a negative impact long term.
Twitch has worked to improve the clarity and transparency of its community guidelines, particularly on sexual content. The Amazon-owned platform says that it always takes context into consideration when deciding on any moderation action.
However, this is part of the problem, as streamers have found that by doing pool streams, or hot tub streams, they can wear a swimsuit without issue, as the ‘context’ of the stream is suitable for the attire.
The growth of the hot tub meta has led to widespread debate, and some have even said that it has created an “anti-women sentiment” on the platform, whose audience is largely male.
Hot tub streams have grown massively in popularity in 2021.Swedish streamer Annie Fuchsia, who has over 240,000 followers on Twitch, highlighted an example of a pool stream from fellow creator Taylor_Jevaux.
“Normally, I’d be afraid to show this because of [terms of service], but this girl was doing this on stream, and she’s not banned which means Twitch thinks it’s ok,” Fuchsia said.
“This is on Twitch. Normally I’d be like ‘I can’t show this on stream,’ this is on Twitch. And it’s so obviously sexualizing, like we’re meant to see this as a normal thing. This is like ‘no big deal’, right?”
Fuchsia says that if this content is normalized as “no big deal,” then the boundaries for actual sexual content are moved further away.
As a streamer in the Just Chatting section at the time, Fuchsia also acknowledged that the category has a stigma attached, particularly for female content creators.
“I’m in Just Chatting now, and are these the type of people that are checking out the category that I’m in? It just feels wrong.”
Twitch is yet to respond to the ongoing debate in the community about the new ‘meta’, which has now been raging on for a number of months.
Although some streamers have faced suspensions for certain actions on hot tub/pool streams, the general rule appears to be that they are permitted, provided the content isn’t overly suggestive.
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