Twitch Delays New Community Guidelines
Twitch announced that the streaming service is delaying the rollout of new community guidelines [...]
Twitch announced that the streaming service is delaying the rollout of new community guidelines for streamers in order to provide a clearer explanation of the new guidelines before they take effect.
The service shared the news of the delay through Twitch's Twitter account with a tweet that thanked Twitch users for their feedback and said that the new guidelines will now take effect on March 5.
Thanks for all your insightful feedback on our new Community Guidelines! It's important they're clear to everyone and we need to better explain some sections, so we're pushing back enforcement to start March 5. We'll release an updated FAQ before then.
— Twitch (@Twitch) February 18, 2018
Earlier in the month, Twitch shared an updated set of guidelines regarding how streamers should appropriately conduct themselves when broadcasting gameplay and other activities. Most of the guidelines include the usual suspects that make up community rules including the prohibition of harassment based on race, gender, physical characteristics, or any other similar traits along with clearer definitions of what all "harassment" involves, those guidelines seen in full through Twitch's extensive look at the new policies and how streamers and viewers can keep others in check.
But following the release of those guidelines, some content creators had a few questions about the policies. Forsen, a streamer who's known for having a particularly animated and vocal group of fans and was even mentioned in the top reply to the Twitch tweet, recently expressed frustrations over the vagueness of the new guidelines. One policy seen in the link above suggested that content creators should make efforts to control their fans, a guideline that Twitch streamers have insisted would be difficult to enforce.
"Creators should consider the consequences of their statements and actions of their audiences; we ask that you make a good faith effort to quell any efforts from those in your community to harass others," the update policy read.
Questions like these are no doubt a significant part of Twitch's decision to move back the release of the guidelines. The last part of Twitch's tweet that confirms a new FAQ will be released closer to March 5 should provide more clarity on the guidelines and how the community can best follow them.
[Polygon]