Twitch, the Amazon-owned video streaming platform primarily used by gamers to livestream their games, announced a new policy Wednesday empowering the company to take action against users who display certain harmful behaviors entirely offline.
The policy represents a unique approach among social media peers at a time when the industry has been under escalating pressure to institute strong and consistent content-moderation policies. As lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have threatened to strip online platforms of their liability protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, many platforms have taken steps to place stronger guardrails on what users can post.
Under the new policy, Twitch can suspend users for up to an indefinite period of time after a third-party investigator determines there is strong evidence the person has engaged in certain offline behaviors. These actions include engaging in deadly violence, terrorist activities, grooming children for sexual exploitation, committing sexual assault or even "acting as an accomplice to non-consensual sexual activities." It will also continue to consider offline harassment in cases where a user alleges abuse online.
Twitch said it will work with "an experienced investigations law firm" to determine the validity of claims, which will rely at times on accessing evidence from law enforcement. The company said it would not take action on a user's account until it concludes its investigation and confirms evidence of wrongdoing.
The harmful offline behaviors do not need to involve another Twitch user to be considered a violation, a spokesperson confirmed. That's based on the notion that people who engage in these types of behaviors are more likely to create safety risks for the Twitch community, the spokesperson added.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @04:45PM
Almost certainly the perpetrators would be mentally ill... oh deer! [rt.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @04:46PM (12 children)
The distinction between on-line and off-line no longer exists. Get over it. If you're a dick on-line, then chances are you're a dick off-line as well and vice versa; or in other words: if you're a dick, you're a dick; stop being a dick.
That being said: do I like this? Not one iota. This is the equivalent of the Americanization of foods: make everything bland and without character, just to appeal to the broadest swath of unwashed masses.
Amazon should go further: in order to protect whoever it is they are attempting to protect, they should shut down the entire thing. Just close it, nuke it from orbit to be sure. That way, no-one will be offended by anyone.
Here we were, always being afraid of the gubment trying to turn us into unfree creatures, when all the while, it was corporations that are the ones to fear the most. Next stop: if you receive 3 strikes on Twitch, all your prices at amazon.com go up by 30%. Good luck proving that since you're the only one seeing it and we'll explain it away as "dynamic pricing".
(Score: 5, Funny) by DannyB on Monday April 12 2021, @05:11PM (5 children)
There are lots, just LOTS of American foods which are not bland.
Tacos
Pizza
General Tsu's Chicken
Chicken tikka masala
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @05:36PM (3 children)
You've not been all too far from your own little town, have you?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday April 12 2021, @07:42PM (2 children)
lol - I saw the irony in pointing out non-American foods to prove that American foods aren't bland. Not that I entirely agree with him, but the irony is there.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @01:46AM
wooooooooooooooooooooooosh
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @05:01AM
Most of those items bare essentially no resemblance to the food items that inspired them.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @07:44PM
Chicken tikka masala is British, not American.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday April 12 2021, @08:26PM (4 children)
Oh look, Jews, trannies, and Jewish trannies ruin yet another online community with their Bolshevik nonsense. What nobody has brought up yet is, how "offline" behavior will be reconciled with "online" behavior. I'm honestly asking you all this question because I don't know twitch's new user vetting process. FIrst of all, do they require positive proof of ID? How does that work? And once they have you identified then, say, you break the rules and they put you under investigation. What does that entail? LexisNexus, some kind of general criminal background check? Or, since the ADL is involved, abuse of a foreign or domestic intelligence apparatus and their databases.
Finally, since the ADL and their stooges are running this, it's gonna be the same way it always was: People with American flags in their backgrounds will be immediately subject to investigation regardless of offense, while child molesting and animal abusing Jews will be given a free pass to air their perversions because they call themselves "anti-racists" and have a BLM flag or something.
Ohhhhh Noooooo, thaaaaat suuuuuuucks! Good thing since everybody and their mom has Amazon, I can ask somebody else to buy my shit for me.
If the powers that be were really interested in making online a better place, then they would have fair standards about how the rules are enforced. Obviously, the rules are not fairly enforced, ergo, this is just another desperate layer of shielding the Jews from legitimate criticism. Also, nice slippery slope, it's more sloped than a Jew's forehead.
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @08:36PM (2 children)
Right on, brother! Heil Hitler!
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday April 12 2021, @09:52PM (1 child)
Hitlers are made, not born. And being banned from your favorite platform for having an American flag or boycotting Major League baseball is a good way to create more Hitlers, especially while Twitch allows user AntifaACABKillWhitey✡☭✡☭✡☭'s channel about destroying storefronts to stay up after repeated complaints of violence and extremism.
The ADL are not out to censor people, that is incidental. They are out to create new enemies to keep those donations flowing in, FBI-style, and regardless of how many other uninvolved people suffer for the ADL's actions. Jewish Trick #127: Although Jews are depicted as overreacting, A true Jew cannot be offended while his interests are at stake.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 13 2021, @12:20PM
What I'm hearing from you is "let us do whatever we want or we'll kill you, literally Nazi-style, and blame you for making us kill you." The Russians have a saying for times like this, and that saying is "idi na khuy."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 14 2021, @06:31AM
That's fine, I'm sick of twitch anyway, maybe I subscribe to one channel, so I don't see ads, but any channel with ads is unwatchable. Who the fuck drinks Coke in 2021? That shit has 50g of sugary substitute. If it's not one sugary bevarage it's another. I really must not the the target demographic for this shit, so please stop showing it to me.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 13 2021, @01:19AM
And yet, whenever I point out to certain people that a business that gets powerful enough *is* effectively a government agency, I get a lot of wharrrgarbling and bullshit and deflection...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Monday April 12 2021, @04:50PM (5 children)
They're not being imprisoned, fined, or pilloried. A private business is declining to do business with them.
There's room for debate over that business's wisdom or ethics in doing so but let's debate what's actually happening.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @05:39PM (1 child)
CaNcEl CuLtUrE!1eleven!111
Rules for thee, but not for me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @06:36PM
At Twitch, it's just thot culture.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Tork on Monday April 12 2021, @06:31PM
There's nothing that says that people who object to this policy can't boycott Twitch. That's how the whole 'invisible hand' is supposed to work. Then again there are people that think being on the unpopular side of a topic is somehow unfair to them.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Monday April 12 2021, @11:03PM
This still can interfere with people's work if they depend on Twitch. And those people are entirely at mercy of those third party investigators and the way Twitch employees would categorize uncovered facts. If they police people outside their site then room for error is a lot greater.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday April 13 2021, @03:58PM
They're being barred without due process from what operates as a public space.
On the scale of the internet, competition is virtually impossible. Twitch is king. Look at what happened to Mixer.
Look, this is what you Libertarians asked for. Private police forces, right? We all thought it was a joke when that AC was making the rounds.
Well, now all you anti-wokeness creeps can contort your peabrains around the puzzle of how to prevent private corporations from turning our society into 1984 without invoking *gasp* sOcIaLiSm.
I mean, I have my doubts that this is a good thing. Obviously. But this policy does provide some consequences, however unjust, for what previously went completely unpunished. My take, it's probably good on the whole for about the next 3-4 years before its original purpose becomes obsolete and the whole thing becomes no more than a pretense for an unchecked expansion of corporate authority over our private lives.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @05:01PM (1 child)
Next week's policy change: after users have been banned, they can confess their sins to Alexa, say ten Hail-Bezos and access will be restored.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @06:45PM
itym Heil-Bezos.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday April 12 2021, @05:08PM (11 children)
So, like harmful things such as masturbation?
Kellogg's Cornflakes was originally created to help stop people from masturbating. Despite the commercial success of Kellogg's Cornflakes, it failed to do what it was created to do.
They're Guuuuuuuuuuureat!
That ad slogan was no doubt intended to convince people that the cornflakes were superior to masturbation.
But now there is a real danger: Twitch might punish you.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @05:18PM (7 children)
Ha - speak for yourself, you massive wanker!
On a more serious note, there's a question about what "harm" entails and if we should allow companies to undermine due-process. Why are Twitch not just working towards banning all convicted felons? Is throwing shade at someone as a part of competitive gaming considered harassment and to be punished by Twitch the same way as a terrorist atrocity?
(Score: 3, Touché) by Tork on Monday April 12 2021, @06:17PM
What 'due process' are you referring to?
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday April 12 2021, @09:41PM (5 children)
Due process doesn't apply: You have no legal right to be on Twitch. You're allowed to be there because Amazon says you're allowed to be there, and they can kick you out anytime they want to.
Just like how a bar can kick you out for not wearing a shirt if they want to. It's legal to go around not wearing a shirt in a lot of cases, but that doesn't require the bar to let you in.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @09:55PM (1 child)
So Amazon gets to rule on these things rather than the courts...?
I'm not.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday April 13 2021, @12:55PM
When the question is "Can this person use Twitch?", yes, they're the ones that get to decide. Just like you get to decide who gets an invite to a dinner party at your house using whatever criteria you like.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 5, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Monday April 12 2021, @10:02PM (2 children)
This is more like a bar kicking you out because you didn't wear a shirt somewhere else a day before.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @11:20AM
Last I checked you were denied admission to Harvard because you shared retarded memes on a whatsapp group.
Same thing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @03:52PM
ftfy.
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Monday April 12 2021, @11:27PM (2 children)
Sounds like they have a clear idea what they're keeping off their property.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @12:43AM
Politicians?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday April 13 2021, @09:18AM
So they'll block soldiers? And special police forces?
Wait, they didn't specify deadly violence against humans, so I get hunters and slaughterhouse staff aren't permitted either?
So grooming adults for sexual exploitation is OK with them? Or else, why specifically mention children here?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Snotnose on Monday April 12 2021, @05:18PM (1 child)
politicians, preachers, lawyers, etc?
Of course I'm against DEI. Donald, Eric, and Ivanka.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday April 12 2021, @05:34PM
Did you intentionally leave out corporate executives?
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 2) by BananaPhone on Monday April 12 2021, @05:39PM
Decisions, Decisions
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @05:42PM
They should ban channels with finical ties to corporations which have been publicly documented as causing harm (ex: payed payed damages in a settlement).
Since Twitch itself (and thus Amazon) gets a large cut of all channel earnings, and I'm sure they have payed out on at least one fine for causing harm (anti competitive behavior, laundering fake products for criminals, mistreatment of employees etc), they should ban all channels.
Corporations are people, except even less of the rules apply to them then apply to rich people.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @06:55PM (2 children)
It's become increasingly clear that the current approach is broken. (Granted, the whole CDA was a mess from Day 1, but even the remaining scraps are pretty broken.) Originally, it was all about letting those virtuous souls in the corporate 'net shield us from the heinous menace of rampaging nipples without legal repercussions, but of course the law of unintended consequences came along, now corporations feel bound to shuffle off all the naughty people before they contaminate li'l Bella with their evil red pills.
Of course, this only works for as long as nobody tells li'l Bella about IRC, Mastodon, or the Dark Web. But we'll gloss over that possibility before some misery merchant suggests that we take a seat.
It reminds me of the days of AOL, when people celebrated AOL's fabulous walled garden, while all the pagans cavorted in the wilds outside - of course, a whole bunch of AOLers would cavort too, and we can't have that.
So we're left with corporations desperately trying to gatekeep their walled gardens, while Bad People (tm) would be perfectly capable of creating a parallel 'net, even using their own numbers and naming scheme, in which they could re-enact all the net.Sodom perversions of prior eras.
Good luck keeping li'l Bella out of there, and being shown what's too hot for HBO or CNN. Fortunately, having her brain expanded will remove her from eligibility for Walpurgisnacht sacrifice, so there's an upside.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 13 2021, @01:22AM
Actually, if little Bella is *too* naive there is a good chance she will *become* Walpurgisnacht. Do not, do not, let her ask that devious little cat-rabbity-weaselly thing to grant her a wish, whatever you do.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @11:22AM
You are talking about Open Source. Don't you know that is what empowers white supremacists? Why would you associate yourself with technology that white supremacists use?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @08:52PM
they're going to ban people who go to the unapproved protests. not that i care. if you use stupid shit like this you deserve what you get, and these Neo-Bolshevik scum will get what's coming to them.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Monday April 12 2021, @10:54PM (1 child)
Last year, big tech vigorously defended section 230. Now they're rolling out a policy involving costly lawyers in anticipation of a hypothetical future repeal of section 230. Do they have amnesia or psychic abilities?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 12 2021, @11:11PM
no matter which way it goes, they'll win.
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Monday April 12 2021, @11:24PM
"an experienced investigations law firm"
Ka-CHING!!
It's going to be a rare user indeed who's worth four or five figures to investigate.
Unless they're just requesting an NCIC lookup and using the law firm to make it sound impressive, and unless they have the law firm on retainer. That might work.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 13 2021, @04:31AM
Corporations have no business knowing what people do outside of their own dealings with that particular company.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by TME520 on Tuesday April 13 2021, @05:25AM (2 children)
Having private companies playing Sheriff sounds like a terrible idea, especially with the Woke Army wreaking havoc IRL & online (we all know how much Big Corps like to please these blue-haired idiots).
Democracy, freedom (of speech and of action) and Humanism are fragile trophies. I wouldn't want to lose this wonderful Human Rights civilization to a bunch of Karens in their yoga pants and PC morons.
Governments were never that great, but they at least were run by an enlightened elite that understood the value of many of the things that make the Western world such a nice place to be.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 13 2021, @12:23PM
...well, there goes my irony meter. Ouch. The poor fuse actually exploded.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Tuesday April 13 2021, @04:09PM
What's funny is that the people who most often complain about censorship, also consistently vote for the side that refuses to hold private corporations accountable for their continuing expansion into state levels of power and authority.
Not that Obama was part of the solution; he was part of the problem, honestly. But Sanders, Warren, AOC, Wyden, that's the side of politics that abhors "private companies playing Sheriff". It's also, incidentally, the side of politics that is most likely to applaud Twitch's actions.
It turns out that the "enlightened elite" you speak of was always "a bunch of Karens in their yoga pants and PC morons". Those people would love to break up the corporations to the point that any attempt by the government to regulate speech would be exceedingly difficult. You'd need China levels of control over the internet to censor speech, if the speech wasn't already centralized into a few monopoly platforms.
And contrary to what Trump and his supporters would have you believe, the left actually hates China for its rampant human rights violations. We secretly cheered when Trump took them to task, just like we secretly cheered when he imposed steel tariffs and went after NAFTA. Secretly, because the Democratic party, much like the Republican party, would very much prefer if its supporters would just stop worrying and learn to accept the oligarchy.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?