Twitch taken over by 'censor bars' meta as viewers react to nudity policy changes

It's been a whirlwind few weeks for the popular streaming platform Twitch after a string of policies and U-turns regarding nudity.

Last week, the company loosened their adult content policy with a guideline that allowed "artistic nudity." However, this soon backfired with an influx of AI-generated nudes when some streamers took it too far.

Subsequently, the policy was reversed the following day.

Twitch CEO Dan Clancy said the "artistic" rule was intended for "the thriving artist community" to "utilise the human form in their art".

"First, we want to make clear that some streamers, in response to this update, created content that was in violation of our new policy. We’ve worked quickly to remove that content and issue channel enforcements," he continued.

"However, there also was a great deal of new content that was allowed under the updated policy. Much of the content created has been met with community concern.

"These are concerns we share. Upon reflection, we have decided that we went too far with this change. Digital depictions of nudity present a unique challenge–AI can be used to create realistic images, and it can be hard to distinguish between digital art and photography."

Now, streamers are taking matters into their own hands by challenging how far they can go in light of the policy reversal.

Twitch has now been flooded with streamers seemingly wearing little or no clothing with black censor banners covering their modesty.

Some have expressed their frustration online, given Twitch is predominantly known as a streaming platform for gaming, with the minimum joining age of 13.

One popular streamer, Firedancer, appeared to be naked. But when the censor bars disappeared, she was fully clothed.

"Clothing should be visible at all times on Twitch," one person wrote on X/Twitter. "Seems like an obvious solution..."

Another highlighted: "My main issue is: isn't Twitch for gaming? Why streams about other crap than video games, sincerely."

Indy100 reached out to Twitch for comment

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