How Twitch solved a huge controversy with UX design
I’ve been writing about the contention between some Twitch users and female Twitch streamers for years. Contention is a kind word for it — the discourse around what women are and aren’t allowed to do on the streaming platform has been downright toxic. It’s easy to observe through “livestream fail” compilations and campaigns to ban certain streamers for purportedly sexual content.
As it is now, it would be a huge undertaking to fix this. It’s a cultural problem, perhaps best exemplified in the bad faith lawsuit against Twitch by Erik Estavillo who claims that Twitch has exacerbated his sex addiction because of the platform’s support of certain women. Estavillo suggested one possible way to shield himself from all these scantily-clad women is by implementing a gender filter on Twitch’s homepage. This way, even if a woman is on trending, he would have to see her. As much as I hate to give him credit — he might be right in that Twitch can solve some of its most controversial issues with user interface changes. (Oh, look at that — Twitch has a new system of over 350 tags. More on that later.)
Estavillo, who has a history of frivolous lawsuits, is likely trolling. But Twitch has now had to consider how to filter out controversial, largely female streams from its homepage. For some people, Twitch is all about watching gaming content — let’s see who’s playing the latest Resident Evil game. For others, however, it’s a place where the chat hangs out with streamers in bikinis. Both of these experiences can happen on the platform, but this is where folks like Estavillo come out of the woodwork, upset that Twitch — which brands itself on gaming content — has become a place to host streamers that are chilling in indoor kiddy pools or lounging in outdoor hot tubs. Irate Reddit posts have alleged that Twitch is more akin to the explicitly adult platform OnlyFans than what its branding suggests.
These controversial hot tub streams are hosted within the “Just Chatting” category on Twitch. One of the most popular categories on the platform, Just Chatting streams might be about watching cat videos, political commentary, or those aforementioned hot tub streams. Until now.
On May 21, Twitch released a statement addressing the controversy, starting by stating that no one deserves to be harassed for how they look or for the content they stream. “Second, while we have guidelines about sexually suggestive content,” this next part was bolded in the blog post, “being found to be sexy by others is not against our rules, and Twitch will not take enforcement action against women, or anyone on our service, for their perceived attractiveness.”
Twitch then goes on to acknowledge that there has understandably been some confusion as to what is permissible according to their respective Nudity & Attire and Sexually Suggestive Content policies. What it comes down to is context — bikinis make sense if you’re in a kiddy pool. Shirtlessness for the sake of body painting is acceptable shirtlessness. Not into shirtlessness or bikinis in any context? You can flag content as “not interested.” Even so, this is not a permanent or effective fix, Twitch says. “However, due to the broad range of content in ‘Just Chatting,’ and the fact that many creators stream in ‘Just Chatting’ for a portion of their streams, that is not an effective way to remove a specific subset of content, like creators streaming in pools or hot tubs.”
So here Twitch was facing a contextual issue: where do hot tub streams belong? The platform answered this question with a little bit of user experience. As of the 21st, Twitch now hosts the new category called “Pools, Hot Tubs, and Beaches” where users can expect to find just that.
The glaring problem wasn’t hot tub streamers. It was that until recently, Twitch was failing to respond and evolve to suit its users’ demands. Demands for mass bannings are obviously untenable (and totally sexist), but creating a contextually sound space for a specific genre of Just Chatting makes sense. As users, we like clean categories. We want to find things we like quickly — and we’re annoyed by the noise of irrelevant content. Imagine if there had been a new game, say Hot Tub Chat 2077, and Twitch failed to make a category for it. Users would be confused why it was showing up in Just Chatting. Fans would have trouble viewing Hot Tub Chat 2077 players, forced to hop around and look for them.
Folks had been demanding Twitch do something for a while now, something to make the hot tub streams fit within the platform (or to reject them entirely). Twitch has taken action by simultaneously declaring that harassment has no place on the platform, and that people in pools do — over in Pools, Hot Tubs, and Beaches. Just in time for summer.
