In March this year, Twitch tried to use the term “womxn” to be more gender neutral in its language, but it failed miserably – The platform quickly received severe public backlash from the LGBT community, with people calling the change transphobic because the term suggested trans women were not women.
Whenever Twitch makes a change in the name of wokeness, its actions often sparks an apocalypse. Let’s take a look at some of the recently banned terms that are causing divisions in the community.
Filter by… race?
Twitch has been going lengths to avoid racism. But in the course of it, they might just have created an avenue for even more racism.
With the video game streaming platform announcing 350 new tags this month, users will now be allowed to filter streams by race, nationality, sexual orientation, mental health, and more. To get a better idea, some of these tags include ‘Black’, ‘disabled’, ‘transgender’, and many others.
While this was done in the good name of promoting inclusivity and diversity, the new tags could easily backfire and enable everything from racial to gender profiling.
“When we made the decision to add these new tags, we wanted to make sure that we were being as inclusive as possible,” said Twitch in a blogpost. But here’s a Reddit user that succinctly encapsulated some of the many things that could go wrong:
Credit: GameAndHike/Reddit
Has Twitch equipped users with tools that liberate, or ostracise?
“Blind playthrough”
Just like going on a “blind date”, playing a game for the first time without reading any guides is often referred to as “blind playthrough”.
While some might not see (no pun intended) harm in using the term “blind”, others believe that the community can do away with ableist language that discriminates or holds prejudice against individuals with actual disabilities.
Since December last year, Twitch removed the ‘blind playthrough’ tag after receiving community feedback. Many welcomed Twitch’s response, but others feel that these vocal minorities are just overthinking.
“You can still use ‘first playthrough’ or opt to use it in combination with ‘no spoilers’ for the same sentiment,” tweeted Erin “Aureylian” Wayne, Twitch’s senior director of community and creator marketing.
Pools, Hot Tubs, and Beaches
We have all heard of the hot tub meta – where bikini clad streamers have been making waves and causing quite a stir and division in the Twitch community. Some found that these arguably sexually-charged streams are ruining the platform, while others are voting in agreement with their view counts and wallets by patronising such content.
Twitch initially came under fire after its community productions head Marcus “djWHEAT” Graham gave a vague and lacklustre response. Viewers were also disappointed over its failure to take action on such creators.
Credit: Twitter
Twitch eventually responded by demonetising these hot tub streams and even creating new ‘pools’, ‘hot tubs’ and ‘beaches’ categories that are dedicated to them.
Credit: Amouranth / Twitch
Apparently, the first four days has garnered more than 1.4 million hours of watch-time in these new categories – with viewership rivalling popular games such as PUBG, Overwatch and Genshin Impact.
“Under our current Nudity & Attire and Sexually Suggestive Content policies, streamers may appear in swimwear in contextually appropriate situations – at the beach, in a hot tub, for example,” said Twitch in a blogpost.
Looks like female streamers sitting in a pool or a hot tub are here to stay, although Twitch did admit that this is certainly no long term solution.
Woke or Broke?
Twitch tries to be woke. But too often, it backfires and damages the very essence of what makes the platform fun and safe for people. Whether it be dropping the banhammer or making radical changes to its community guidelines, is this woke version of Twitch a better Twitch?
Let us know which side of the fence you are on.
