Twitch is under fire after its hyped up “not interested” button designed to better curate users’ interests doesn’t work on hot tub streams being promoted on the site.
The hot tub Twitch meta has proven to be quite controversial in the past year, with many streamers capitalizing on the new trend of broadcasting from pools in their homes while wearing bikinis.
Many have accused the platform of allowing overtly sexual content, leading to battle lines being drawn between those who want the content on the site and those who don’t.
Even huge streamers such as Felix ‘xQc’ Lengyel and Rachel ‘Valkyrae’ Hoffstater have taken opposite sides on the issue.
During a discussion on hot tub streams on April 28, Twitch’s DJWheat hyped up the “not interested” button as a way for users to avoid those types of broadcasts.
“You can click these three buttons right here and say you are not interested,” the Head of Twitch Community Productions explained. “Or, if I come down, and I say ‘this is not something that interests me,’ I can go in and I can click not interested.”
According to DJWheat, this would help the site’s discovery system set what users want to see and what they don’t want to see.
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https://twitter.com/TwitchStuff/status/1389075586514100232
However, as it turns out, this feature isn’t working on streams being promoted by Twitch itself, and that of course including hot tub streams.
“The fact that I can see ‘Just Chatting’ even though specifically put it into my unwanted list, kinda pisses me off,” one user wrote.
“That’s pretty f***ing yikes tbh,” said another.
Also the fact, that I can see "just chatting" even though specifically put it into my unwanted list, kinda pisses me off.
— Tomáš Jelínek (@OlaffLudwig) May 3, 2021
Given the fact that Twitch wants users to make use of the “not interested” button, the fact they’re unable to for promoted streams seems a bit ridiculous to some, especially with the controversy over the hot tub meta.
So far, Twitch has yet to respond to the criticism or state whether it will allow for viewers to start listing promoted streams as “not interested.” For the time being at least, the hot tub meta controversy continues.