On Thursday, Amazon-owned live streaming platform Twitch announced that it had updated its policies to address “misinformation” superspreaders.
In a blog post announcing the new rules, Twitch said that misinformation on its platform could cause real-world harm.
Now, the platform will not allow “harmful misinformation superspreaders who persistently share misinformation on or off of Twitch.”
Several channels will be affected by the new rules, as channels have to meet certain criteria. The policy will supposedly only affect users who persistently share what Twitch decides is misinformation. The company said that only about 100 channels currently meet the criteria.
“We’ve partnered with over a dozen researchers and experts to understand how harmful misinformation spreads online and ensure our approach to mitigating its risks in our community is effective for Twitch,” the platform announced.
“We’ve learned that Harmful Misinformation Actors account for a disproportionate amount of damaging, widely debunked misinformation online. Together, we’ve identified three characteristics that all of these actors share: their online presence – whether on or off Twitch – is dedicated to (1) persistently sharing (2) widely disproven and broadly shared (3) harmful misinformation topics, such as conspiracies that promote violence.”
The new policy also covers users’ activities off the platform.
