New Twitch labels hope to better classify mature content

Parental Advisory Explicit Content

Twitch is adopting a new range of labels and tags with which it hopes creators can better classify mature content on their respective channels — The new tags, which are live on the platform right now, are the latest step in the company’s efforts to improve community safety on the popular streaming service.

Initially, the site had a catch-all “Mature Content” label, but the new tags hope to be a little more specific as to what audience members can expect when visiting one of the site’s millions of channels.

The new labels are:

• Mature-Rated Games
• Sexual Themes
• Drugs, Intoxication, or Excessive Tobacco Use
• Violent and Graphic Depictions
• Significant Profanity or Vulgarity
• Gambling

While the Mature labels warn Twitch viewers of a channel’s content, they are not a replacement nor a “Get Out of Jail Free Card” for anyone breaking the site’s Community Guidelines, which remain unaltered at the time of writing. Streamers may receive warnings for failing to accurately label their content, with potential blocks for repeat offenders. That said, Twitch also notes that a streamer will not be auto-suspended for mislabelling their channel. You can check out the full details on the new labeling system on Twitch.

Twitch continues to implement and experiment with rules, guidelines, and features in order to combat explicit content on the website. Of course, given the mammoth nature of the streaming platform, moderation has been a momentous issue for the Twitch team, which has led to false positives, user confusion, and the controversial application, (and sometimes retraction) of security and marketing measures.

Chris Moyse

Senior Editor – Chris has been playing video games since the 1980s and writing about them since the 1880s. Graduated from Galaxy High with honors. Twitter: @ChrisxMoyse

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