In response to yet another salacious “meta,” Twitch is imposing new restrictions on its community. The streaming hub is banning “content that focuses on intimate body parts for a prolonged period of time.”
The latest update to Twitch’s Community Guidelines comes on the heels of several risqué streams hosted by one of the platform’s most notorious boundary pushers. Morgpie, who played a pivotal in the “topless meta” that flourished on Twitch last December, found a new way to challenge Twitch’s censors. The 22-year-old OnlyFans star projected gameplay onto her body parts by wearing a monochrome outfit and using her breasts and butt as green screens.
Morgpie’s antics went viral, and a new Twitch meta was soon born. The Amazon-owned platform wasted little time updating its rules. A tweet published on March 27 revealed new language in the Sexual Content section of the Twitch Community Guidlines. “Content on Twitch is always evolving, and we want to make sure our rules work as intended and keep up with emerging behaviors,” reads the tweet. “When needed, we make updates to our rules to capture those shifts in behavior, and so it’s clear to the community what is allowed.”
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Twitch’s latest policy shift shows that the platform is still figuring out the best way to deal with rule-flaunters like Morgpie. When the topless meta was at its apex, Twitch attempted to relax its guidelines and allow more explicit streams. That move backfired, leading to a deluge of pornographic content and a prompt reversal of the slackened policy.
“Digital depictions of nudity present a unique challenge,” Twitch CEO Dan Clancy wrote at the time. “AI can be used to create realistic images, and it can be hard to distinguish between digital art and photography.”
The decision to ban streams on breasts and butts may lead to a fresh wave of confusion and chaos. What counts as content that focuses on intimate body parts for a prolonged period of time? Will the hosts of hot tub streams be penalized? Streamers are about to find out how far Twitch’s new policy extends, and I have a feeling this won’t be the last time the Sexual Content section of the Community Guidelines gets an update.
