Amazon’s Twitch updates policies to address ‘severe off-service misconduct’

Summary (IA Generated)

Twitch users may now face punitive measures by the service for actions that occurred offline, on other platforms, or before they started using Twitch at all.

Twitch, owned by Amazon, announced the changes in a post on its official blog, entitled “Our Plan for Addressing Severe Off-Service Misconduct.

This follows up on updates to the service’s Hateful Conduct and Harassment policy, which took effect Jan.

Under the new rules, Twitch may take action against users of its service for “hateful conduct or harassment” that occurs off Twitch’s services, when directed at or committed by members of the Twitch community and when there is “available, verifiable evidence” on the subject.

tv, for confidential reports of misconduct by holders of a Twitch account.

In January, we began enforcing our updated Hateful Conduct and Harassment policy so we could better protect every person on Twitch.

However, its new policies represent a big jump in overall content moderation for Twitch, even in comparison to comparable sites such as YouTube, and is unique in targeting offline behavior at all.

Twitch’s blog post is careful to state that the misconduct targeted by this measure is anything that poses a “substantial safety risk” to Twitch’s users and community.

The policy does go on to specify that a person who’s found to have committed a relevant offense, such as a “form of severe abuse,” can get their account terminated, and will subsequently be prohibited from registering a new account.

Twitch further promises that it will only take action when it’s been given evidence for an account holder’s actions, such as screenshots, interviews, video, or police reports, and when its first– or third-party investigators have been able to verify that evidence.