[HN Gopher] Twitch U-turns on 'artistic nudity' policy
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       Twitch U-turns on 'artistic nudity' policy
        
       Author : edward
       Score  : 28 points
       Date   : 2023-12-19 21:41 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
        
       | jimmaswell wrote:
       | Happened the instant male streamers/subjects were involved.
       | Typical double standard.
        
         | hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
         | The article says the main issue had nothing to do with any
         | prurient concerns, it was more about art communities getting
         | spammed due to allowing "drawings" of nudity which were
         | indistinguishable from photos:
         | 
         | > Digital depictions of nudity present a unique challenge -
         | artificial intelligence can be used to create realistic images,
         | and it can be hard to distinguish between digital art and
         | photography
         | 
         | > The decision came after an outpouring of concern online from
         | Twitch's art community about the volume of AI-generated nudes
         | which began to bombard Twitch's art category since the policy
         | change.
        
           | SeanAnderson wrote:
           | The person you're responding to has an element of fairness in
           | the point they're making, though.
           | 
           | Straight from Twitch:
           | 
           | > Much content that was previously prohibited is now allowed
           | with proper Content Classification labels: Content that
           | 'deliberately highlighted breasts, buttocks or pelvic
           | region,' even when fully clothed, fictionalized (drawn,
           | animated, or sculpted) fully exposed female-presenting
           | breasts and/or genitals or buttocks regardless of gender,
           | body writing on female-presenting breasts and/or buttocks
           | regardless of gender and erotic dances that involve disrobing
           | or disrobing gestures, such as strip teases.
           | 
           | "female-presenting breasts and/or genitals" were acceptable
           | forms of artistic nudity, but male-presenting genitals were
           | not.
        
       | unpopularopp wrote:
       | And now we have this instead
       | 
       | NSFW
       | https://old.reddit.com/r/LivestreamFail/comments/18lvnez/new...
       | 
       | The whole thing is just embarrassing. OF girls and pornstars
       | using the site as a softcore promo. Amazon of course won't do
       | anything (like spinning up a proper porn site) casue literally
       | this grey area is the best market. No content filter (kids can
       | watch it) and advertisers don't leave (it's not porn)
        
         | ronsor wrote:
         | > New meta
         | 
         | I'm sorry, what? The old meta is only ~3 days old, isn't it?
        
         | whalesalad wrote:
         | The OG twitch was justin.tv, a live streaming service. It began
         | with literally streaming every aspect of your personal life. It
         | eventually transitioned into game streaming, but it was
         | originally for anyone who wanted to stream.
         | 
         | I don't really understand why anyone cares what is streamed
         | there. I believe in the idea that anything should be possible,
         | and allow the commons/people to dictate whether they like it or
         | not. If people want to see a naked chick sitting in a gaming
         | chair giggling why stop them? Who cares?
        
           | eropple wrote:
           | I care, because I don't want to see it when I'm looking to
           | watch a video game stream--there are places for porn. And
           | "well we'll just have opt-in categories" sounds great, except
           | that these categories are thin and (on Twitch especially) not
           | composable; as the purveyors are looking for more clicks, it
           | means trying to rules-lawyer the categories to get in front
           | of eyeballs who are _not_ looking for mature content, because
           | maybe they 'll catch more who are.
           | 
           | If their categorization was perfect--sure, go nuts. It's not
           | and it won't be, so it makes for a worse site for me.
        
             | whalesalad wrote:
             | Yeah so it could be handled like virtually every other site
             | on the earth (ie, google, reddit) where you can check a box
             | in your account to show/hide NSFW content. Easy peasy.
        
           | haunter wrote:
           | >I don't really understand why anyone cares what is streamed
           | there.
           | 
           | >Who cares?
           | 
           | Just like why people _do care_ what's posted on HN?
           | 
           | Why do we have guidelines and rules?
           | 
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
           | 
           | Maybe we should post some porn here too, I don't really
           | understand why anyone cares what posted here am I rite?
        
             | whalesalad wrote:
             | Terrible stuff gets posted here all the time and the
             | community flags/moderates it.
        
           | sneak wrote:
           | Advertisers care, and large conglomerates care about PR
           | backlash, because invariably if you let 18/19yo stream boobs
           | (legal and extremely popular) then 17.9yo will also do it and
           | suddenly you're trafficking in child pornography and a threat
           | to the very fabric of society.
        
             | whalesalad wrote:
             | Advertisers want eyeballs. You're not trafficking child
             | porn if an underage kid happens to see your ad alongside a
             | stream of a naked woman. Give me a break.
        
               | insanitybit wrote:
               | It's more that credit card providers care, for some weird
               | reason, and therefor everyone cares.
        
       | elephanlemon wrote:
       | Twitch has already been morphing into Chaturbate and the change
       | last week doubled down there. I don't think a website with a
       | large audience of children should have been brushing up against
       | pornography. I don't even know what was going on with the AI art
       | stuff, but there were numerous streams where females appeared
       | topless, stopping just short of visible nipples.
        
         | ipaddr wrote:
         | The human body is something to be ashamed of.
        
         | voidfunc wrote:
         | Meh if you're old enough to be online by yourself you're old
         | enough to see some titties.
         | 
         | The puritan approach to sex in America is ridiculous.
        
           | haunter wrote:
           | Or maybe not every site should be about porn?
           | 
           | Why don't we post here on HN then too?
        
             | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
             | > Why don't we post here on HN then too?
             | 
             | Twitch's audience wants it and HN's audience doesn't.
             | Perhaps more accurately, HN specifically doesn't want that.
        
             | malfist wrote:
             | HN isn't an image or video sharing site?
        
               | haunter wrote:
               | >HN isn't an image or video sharing site?
               | 
               | Not with that attitude
        
           | pierat wrote:
           | And somehow, seeing Palestineans' parts of bodies on the
           | front page of CNN is fine.
           | 
           | It's the puritanical idiocracy of "woman body bad, death and
           | dismemberment good".
           | 
           | (I don't mind seeing topless people. Indifferent really. But
           | seeing people blown up is akin to a snuff film. And this
           | world needs less violence.)
        
             | peyton wrote:
             | I mean, I dunno, the Puritans were upset at tolerance. It's
             | not really puritanical if Amazon doesn't want to run an
             | internet brothel. Besides, any time you let new content on
             | a social site you risk getting flooded and people leaving.
        
           | Retr0id wrote:
           | Old enough to _see_ titties perhaps, but not to parasocially
           | live-chat about them, or send cash tips.
        
         | kgwxd wrote:
         | Are there a lot of kids on there? My oldest never watched it
         | once and my youngest only knows it as the place we can feed
         | cats treats with channel points while old people talk about old
         | video games.
        
       | blueblimp wrote:
       | I don't know what Twitch's goals are here, but if they want to
       | get rid of the right-up-against-the-line content, then maybe
       | clear, consistently-enforced rules are actually detrimental,
       | because it just invites rules lawyering like we see here. If
       | Twitch staff just went around arbitrarily banning anything they
       | don't like, the affected streamers would hate it (because they
       | wouldn't know what they can get away with), which, if you want to
       | drive them off the platform, is a good thing.
        
         | insanitybit wrote:
         | Users get _really_ bothered by arbitrary banning, irrationally
         | so I think. I 've been on sites with moderators who could
         | basically just enforce the rules as they liked and it's so much
         | better. No "well _technically_ I 'm not rule breaking" - a
         | human makes a judgment and bans them.
         | 
         | For some reason these "professional" Websites (ie: the modern
         | web of company-run forums) seem to resist this idea, and
         | unfortunately it's hard to do it later in the game because the
         | userbases can be very easily riled up.
        
       | pyrophane wrote:
       | They really didn't think that through! "Artistic nudity?" They
       | thought defining and enforcing rules around what constitutes
       | "art" in the context of nudity was a good plan? Even without AI
       | (which seems to be the in vogue thing to blame for everything
       | that doesn't go well) this was a horrible idea.
        
       | makomk wrote:
       | As far as I could tell, the new artistic nudity policy never
       | existed in practice and Twitch doesn't seem to have been serious
       | about it. Basically _everyone_ who drew art with genitals or
       | female nipples got their account suspended aside from one or two
       | exceptions that seem to have slipped through the cracks. This
       | wasn 't just limited to AI art or anything even vaguely
       | photorealistic either, and it included Twitch partners whose bans
       | are supposedly are handled in house. Also, whilst the Twitch CEO
       | did say that some people had been accidentally banned who were
       | following the rules, Twitch conspicously didn't unban any of them
       | until comfortably after the U-turn. There was also nothing
       | stopping the full, uncensored thumbnails showing up on the Art
       | category page, including for users whose accounts were marked as
       | under-18.
        
       | happytiger wrote:
       | Why don't they just add a filter that is off by default and
       | requires opting in and age verification? Is it purely legal
       | liability and brand perception here, because the technical
       | hurdles are fairly trivial.
        
         | SeanAnderson wrote:
         | Credit card processing is split between normal and high risk
         | merchant accounts.
         | 
         | Major CC companies tend to be significantly less interested in
         | dealing with high risk accounts.
         | 
         | If Twitch introduces content segregation then they're making it
         | explicitly clear that they consider an aspect of their business
         | higher risk. They don't want that.
        
       | mise_en_place wrote:
       | What's always been strange to me is that these kinds of streamers
       | are not judged as harshly as real sex workers. On the status
       | hierarchy, they seem to be close to the top.
        
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       (page generated 2023-12-19 23:01 UTC)