Twitch CEO Dan Clancy has revealed plans to further combat harassment on the streaming platform, promising that harsher penalties are coming to offenders.
The streaming world is continuing to evolve as Twitch faces competition from rivals like Kick and Rumble, with YouTube also proving to be a legitimate contender.
As part of its growth, Twitch has revealed its plans for 2024 in a blog post written by its CEO, going over what the streaming platform has in store for users for the rest of the year.
According to Clancy, the team evaluated the existing rules and policies it uses to combat harassment in 2023. Later in 2024, the site will be rolling out big updates to better police the platform, including taking more drastic action against perpetrators.
Twitch confirms Community Guidelines changes coming in 2024
Clancy revealed that multiple updates will be coming to Twitch later this year after better understanding how harassment is experienced on the site.
“This year, we’ll roll out updates to our Community Guidelines, including clearer, updated harm definitions, and more severe penalties for some types of harassment,” he said.
In 2024 we’re focused on building products, tools, and programs to help you grow your communities and make streaming more rewarding, fun, and safe. Read the new open letter from Twitch CEO Dan Clancy to see some of the work we’re committed to this year: https://t.co/itW5qg8Vxp
— Twitch (@Twitch) March 6, 2024
It’s not clear what those penalties will be, but in the past, we have seen big-name streamers get permabanned for encouraging harassment. JiDion, for instance, was hit with a permaban after orchestrating a “hate raid” against fellow streamer Pokimane in 2022 and has had his appeals denied ever since.
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“We’re also building tools to better identify harassment across our service, including changes that would block more harassment before it shows up in your chat,” Clancy added.
Twitch CEO hints at changes to bans
Furthermore, the Twitch CEO indicated that suspensions could be getting a bit of an overhaul, explaining that the team often gets questions about their length and how the results differ based on individual violations.
“We want to ensure that when someone breaks our Community Guidelines, the suspensions we issue match the severity and seriousness of the harm,” he said.
“We also recognize that some suspensions shouldn’t stick around forever, like violations of our lower-severity policies, which cover non-malicious or accidental behaviors that aren’t likely to result in serious physical or emotional harm.”
Clancy gave the example of a user having a drug-related term in their username as an offense that shouldn’t result in a permaban.
More information is expected to be revealed in 2024, including sub cost increases in the US and other countries following their hike in Canada, Australia and the UK.