Participants walk past televisions showing live streams of Twitch Interactive’s video service at the E3 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles.
Patrick T. Fallon | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Twitch, the Amazon video streaming platform used by Amazon primarily to stream their games, on Wednesday announced a new policy that enables 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 come under increasing pressure to implement strong and consistent content moderation policies. As lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have threatened to deprive online platforms of their liability protection under section 230 of the Communications Act, many platforms have taken steps to place stronger handrails on what users can place.
Under the new policy, Twitch may suspend users indefinitely after a third-party investigator determines that there is strong evidence that the person has certain rights. These actions include engaging in lethal violence, terrorist activities, caring for children for sexual exploitation, committing sexual assault or even ‘acting as an accomplice to sexual activities that are not without consent.’ It will also continue to consider offline harassment in cases where a user is abusing online.
Twitch said it would work with an experienced investigative law firm to determine the validity of claims, which would sometimes rely on access to law enforcement evidence. The company said it would not take action against the user’s account until it had completed the investigation and confirmed the evidence of misconduct.
The malicious behavior offline does not have to involve another Twitch user to be considered an offense, a spokesman confirmed. This is based on the idea that people who engage in this type of behavior are more likely to create security risks for the Twitch community, the spokesman added.
Other social media platforms also take into account the actual harm that users spread on their platforms, but Twitch’s new policy is unique for its explicit approach to completely offline behavior and for some of the types of offline behavior that prohibit it. For example, Facebook’s community standards prevent mass murderers and members of terrorist, hate, criminal, or human trafficking organizations any form of presence on its platforms. Twitch’s policies include other offline behaviors that may not be part of an organized criminal group, such as sexual assault.
Social media platforms tend to base the majority of their enforcement actions on harm resulting from content posted on their services. Although they can take real events into account when inflicting the damage, they will usually refer to postings on their own platforms as the turning point for action.
Even when Facebook and Twitter decided to ban former President Donald Trump from their services after the uprising on the US Capitol on January 6, their reasoning was essentially rooted in the ways they said he used or could use their platforms to further violence. to awaken. .
Twitch’s new approach follows a broader discussion of how certain real events should be handled by the technology platforms. Last month, a Business Insider investigation led to the accusation of a woman 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 on an evening when she and her friends appeared in one of the group’s videos when she said she was too drunk to give permission. Zeglaitis declined to comment on the allegations to Insider.
Google, which is owned by Google, said following the report that it would temporarily prevent Dobrik from earning his account through advertising. YouTube’s policy for creators states that off-platform behavior, including violence or cruelty, may result in fines, such as the loss of promotional opportunities, or the emergence of videos in user recommendations.
Although Twitch will initially address a handful of listed serious violations, the platform said it is aiming for the guidelines to be repetitive. Since it is difficult to verify offline damage, the company first prioritized the categories that they believe would be most harmful to its community.
Users who want to report confidential damage offline that fall under the categories banned by Twitch can email [email protected].
Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.
WATCH: The big, messy business of content moderation on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube