As Election Day approaches, Twitch is clarifying the types of “sensitive social issues” that require content labels

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A policy update on Ryk has parts of the platform’s community up in arms. This time, the contested change concerns Twitch’s Content Rating Labels (CCL) and the situations in which they must be used.

Twitch already requires labels for certain streams, including those that contain M-rated games, sexual themes, and/or graphic violence. In a post published on November 1Twitch added a “Politics and Sensitive Social Issues” section to its CCL guide. Streamers are now required to flag content if it contains political discussions with elected officials, commentary on elections or global conflicts, or footage from civil rights rallies.

These changes make sense for a platform currently inundated with political squabbles that have pitted some of its best streamers against each other. But a fifth point in the CCL amendment proved contentious: Twitch specified that marks must be placed on “ptreams focused on discussing topics such as gender, race, sexuality or religion in a polarizing or inflammatory manner.”

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That line drew immediate backlash from LGBTQ members of Twitch’s community, who argued that the new provision dampens their lived experience. After enduring three days of negative feedback, Twitch announced an update to the wording of its new CCL rules. The CCL site now says that discussing one’s own “lived experiences” will not require content labels. Political streamers can also exempt themselves from the new policy if they discuss current events in a “neutral, fact-based manner.” Translation: Education streams on politics are OK, but advocacy on particular topics requires a CCL waiver.

It is an important clarification, but streamers still have questions about the rubric Twitch will use to apply these new rules. Once again, Twitch’s obscurity has drawn criticism. Despite efforts to keep its community informed, Twitch continues to catch its streamers off guard with sudden changes to its rulebook.

It’s a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” type of situation for the Amazon-owned streaming hub. If Twitch takes a more laissez-faire stance, its ill-behaved community members tend to run amok. But efforts to clean up this behavior can also go awry, as we learned from the chaos that ensued when Twitch tried to address its so-called “nudity meta.”

The bottom line is that Twitch wants to make its streamers more attractive to brands, so it’s started enforcing ad-friendly guidelines more strictly. This is why streamers who fail to apply CCLs correctly can have their content demonetized as a result.

It’s similar to what YouTube went through when it developed and expanded it own advertisement-friendly guidelines. There have been some growing pains along the way, but the experience of monetizing creators has steadily improved. Twitch hopes to see a similar sequence unfold on its own platform.