Twitch rescinds its artistic nudity policy | Hacker News Reader

Twitch rescinds its artistic nudity policy

theverge.com

49 pointsthunderbong63 comments

(NSFW) Posts like: https://twitter.com/l9friendlystyle/status/17351986277931541... sure probably helped sway opinion

Summary for those who don’t like Twitter or videos: it’s a screen recording of someone signing up for Twitch with a date of birth in 2010, searching for “Art”, and seeing boobs

Cartoon boobs, that is. Mostly anime, and some in the process of being drawn.

Breasts, penises, ambiguously thigh obfuscated vaginas, and butt holes including childlike characters and furries. All drawn.

I really hate gotcha videos like that, but I'm sure it was effective. So will they now move into the skimpy, ill-proportioned bathing suit era? Sexuality will always express itself somehow.

What’s the gotcha part? He signed up as a 13 year old (birthday in 2010) and searched for “art”.

The intent was clear. The only reason someone makes a video like that is to push puritanical filtering. I expect searching for beach might include shirtless men, and that's okay. Whether you see them as sexual or not depends more on you than the artist.

We are talking about the regular of regular "Art" category. Maybe, just maybe it shouldn't have NSFW stuff immediatly visible to anyone signing up (especially when they entered they are 13).

I really don't care either way, it's not exactly my problem and I don't really mind it, but there are parents that don't want their kids exposed to that (ignoring if parents need to be helicopter parents when the kids are on the internet) as well as other people that aren't comfortable with nudity in any way.

I would rather 13-year-olds see naked people than chainsaw mass murder, yet what is socially acceptable in North America is the reverse; the normal thing is unacceptable and the horrendous thing is just fine.

Neither of those things should be coming up for kids who search for “art”

One of them is completely natural and accepted in America and the other are boob's.

I feel like is nudity wasn't so taboo and sexualized it may not be that bad.

But I do realize there's a difference between erotica art like in the video and art that happens to contain nudity.

That difference is the whole problem though.

Ok so you’re saying you searched beach and got a shirtless man and that should be ok.

But the video is implying that searching for beach is going to give you gay furry porn and Hentai featuring children.

Not letting users broadcast hentai under the Art category = puritanical.

The gotcha is acting like this hasn't been a thing on the internet since the 90's.

I don't think that type of streaming should be prohibited, but that's a huge oversight for Twitch to not hide those 18+ streams from under 18s

The only difference today after the reversal of the reversal Art section is filled with channels showing 24/7 'twerk off' streams glued from tiktok clips.

Yesterday (or maybe 2 days ago?) top stream was a big titted Vietnamese girl in g-string with dual camera setup twerking her heinie off for tips.

Between all the ai generated nudity, furry stuff, a general onslaught of erect penises, educational twerking, cartoons with subjects of questionable age (tagged with 18+ of course), there was some tasteful nude art to be found.

Impossible for twitch to moderate this though. Guess we're back to regularly scheduled bikini pool, stretching and ASMR streams with onlyfans and pornhub links.

What are they huffing at Twitch - how can nobody not forseen this ???.

Either they honestly didn't foresee this obvious outcome and are completely out of touch, or they did foresee it and were somehow hoping for a different outcome anyway.

When I was at amazon I interacted with twitch teams several times for projects and they legitimately didn't seem to understand that twitch and adult streaming sites are pretty much the exact same setup with different branding so being completely out of touch isn't out of the question, some of it willfully so.

I think this is malicious compliance by someone. Someone who wanted to go out and show just how things would work if policies are eased...

"It's called hentai and it's art!"

Obviously nobody in Twitch have ever seen The Office...

In case anyone misses the reference, there was a deleted scene from an episode that revealed Stanley looked at hentai pictures behind his crossword puzzles.

I'm glad it was cut but man is it funny.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_6lFkOg7ko

(Video has no nudity, the pictures are heavily censored)

I wonder if the U.S. will ever be free from the grips of its puritanical heritage.

Not while religion plays a role in politics and national discourse.

I must say the Satanic temple Xmas display at the Iowa State House was rather funny.

Do you think it's holding us back? What social benefit is there behind allowing 13-year-olds to easily view this content?

But to your point, when I was 13, I was able to find much worse (or better depending on how you look at it) pornography on the internet. And that was in the late 90s. So I'm not convinced this is the worst thing in the world. However, I get why Twitch feels like they can't allow it. And I'd still rather have this sort of censorship occur at the corporate level than at the government level, as we're seeing some states attempt.

I think there's somewhat of a difference between a 13 y/o having this content shoved in their face vs them having to proactively look for it.

That really is the key here, no child looking for damaging material is looking for it on twitch. "The think of the children" angle is just a convenient stand-in for the real issue, which is the puritanical cultural threads that still influence many Americans and how they respond to nudity and sex.

That’s the opposite problem though. The issue is damaging material being pushed towards kids that are not looking for it.

Sure, I don't think kids (or anyone) should have "damaging material" pushed in their faces. But the issue with the twitch community's reaction to their moderation changes isn't about content being pushed onto kids, its about the community's moral views regarding anything loosely associated with "camming". It's been a common thread since the beginning of twitch to talk down to non-gamers on twitch, usually women, and call them various derogatory terms implying that they're just glorified camgirls. The backlash against any and all non-gaming categories over the years is this dynamic playing out. This is just the most recent iteration. Over-dramatizing one's concern for kids is just a convenient surrogate that lands better.

Eh. The sexist thing is a lame defense. Yes there are sexist folks making aggressive claims. That does not define the system.

At the end of the day, if porn is allowed, then porn is everywhere. In a system like twitch, it is pushed on you without asking for it as a user. It could be quarantined and made opt in, but honestly they just failed to implement that effectively.

It's not a defense, we just seem to be having different conversations. But I agree with your point, the content should be opt in. Twitch bumbled their rollout of this change about as bad as they could have.

Perhaps we are. But the bumbled rollout is the thing being reversed.

> Do you think it's holding us back?

Absolutely, the idea that a naked human body is inherently obscene, and that we need to protect people from viewing it, is ridiculous. It's the sign of an immature society whose practices are still based upon ancient superstitions.

Do you think that kids should be shown imagery of a dog fucking a young girl

Probably not, but that shouldn't be conflated with nudity.

Fucking (typically) happens in the context of nudity, but there are many other reasons for nudity, and its association with and only with fucking in American society has led to some...unfortunate side effects.

Alright but you’re just drawing a slightly different line then. And both of the lines in question are running straight through the thick wad of content that gets pushed on kids if nothing is set up. So sure, Americans are prudes. But neither you, nor the Americans, want furry rape porn pushed on kids. Maybe you do want nudes pushed on kids. Is your opinion on the general setup of the system really that different? I think not.

First off, I'm American. I'm complaining about my own culture.

It's interesting that you're using active language ("pushed on") for kids browsing and seeing something. It's possible (likely, even) that "Artistic nudes" should have an 18+ tag on them that 1. Prevents an under 18 user from seeing them and 2. Is easily filtered out.

I'm kind of astonished that isn't already the case.

But I also think one thing that's happening is a bunch of people are taking the opportunity of Twitch expanding what's allowed to flagrantly break the expanded rules. And it's always a little funny to me when people say "People are flagrantly breaking the rules! We need tighter rules!"

Sure

But 1 and 2 are not implemented. That’s the tablestakes.

It’s not ironic to suggest that this particular rule is prone to abuse and that changing it would change user behavior.

Grow up

Exactly! We must celebrate the human body only by dismembering it!

While I don’t think lack of nudity can “hold a society back”, somewhere around 99% of the male population in the United States is addicted to porn (which is a type of nudity). Clearly there is no lack of nudity.

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