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Twitch updates sexual content guidelines amid ‘topless’ meta backlash
(www.dexerto.com)
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
My only issue is that kids use the platform a lot and shouldn't be exposed to overly sexualised content when they're just looking for gaming content. Twitch apparently says they'll try to remove it from the front page but stuff inevitably gets though.
You're worried about kids seeing a nipple while they watch a streamer turn their enemy into a bloody mess. If we can accept kids seeing constant violence in their media, I really don't think nudity is a big deal. We have our priorities all messed up.
There are also Mario videos and Suika. It’s not just nips or Bloodbath the Incinerator HD.
It’s hard parenting because the platforms change quickly and navigating when and how to have impactful conversations with kids is hard.
I typed out a multiple paragraph response to this and really it boiled down to a couple sentences so I’ll just post them instead. It’s about reputation, twitch doesn’t want to be known as a soft core porn site and if a parent sees a boob then it could impact whether they let their teenager use the site (which to be honest is there most active user base). It’s not about having priorities straight wrt sex vs violence, it’s just maximizing profit.
Nah I don't care about that, I care about it being shoved in their faces. My kids are at least old enough to know about these topics somewhat and can make the distinction between video game violence and some cam girl.
What happened to good parenting being a valid solution to a problem like that?
Kids will be kids. Good parenting makes a big difference but kids will end up seeing and seeking these things at some point.
And how can twitch prevent that? The parent can just block all of twitch, then whitelist vetted streamers.
This works if parents have the technical knowledge to do so. Otherwise it ends with the parents clutching their pearls or just having their ISP block Twitch outright on the router or something. Which might lead to the kids learning the technical skills to get around these blocks if they want to watch Twitch badly enough.
Kids learning to bypass security is a great start for learning technical skills. Inept school IT got a lot of kids started on their way to lucrative jobs.
Good parenting in the age of streaming platforms and social media is a frigging minefield. I’m not saying it should be easy, but it has entirely new challenges that didn’t exist for all of humanity before the internet. You can’t even ban your kids from the platforms to solve the problem because schools depend on YouTube for instruction, and work is done on Chromebooks that parents usually have no admin control over.
Again, not saying parents get a free pass, but the challenges are evident.
Tbh I recall watching a kugkrizat video talking about how the Internet is so enshitifiyd due to how we've all made a few midea platforms become the Internet town square. I think that is not only making everyone hostile to one another but it's also made parenting next to impossible on the web. Everywhere that there are people there are some edgy people as well. You can't really regulate anything without pissing a sizeable amount of the population off.
I had "good parenting" and I still did so much shit. Lol
Good parenting is not letting your children using twitch. Let’s be honest, the whole web is degenerate. You either have to curate absolutely every piece of content your child consumes or have to give them the skills to identify and turn off in appropriate content (which isn’t easy either)
Should just remove kids tbh
If Twitch wants to be an adult platform then they should honestly.
Agreed!
My 4-year old nephew was watching YouTube Kids one night when I was babysitting, and some roblox trash was on. Usernames and chat were included on-screen. "I hate N****rs" "gas the Jews" and similar were prominent usernames and chat was full of 4Chan type chat. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ All these platforms are unfit for kids.
Aaaaaand the Art category is covered in furry penises and nude little anime girls...
Sure, but you could have a setting which allows sexualised content to be accessed or showed. Or just a popup when entering the stream like it already does with mature streams or whatever they're called. You can have the streams only visible to people logged in, have people put their age on the account when making it (not sure if already a thing) and not show this stuff to people under 18. Yes you can just say you're 18 but in that case the kids do it deliberately and won't just stumble upon it. Have the parents do an underage account for them. Lots of options, and yes, the parents do have responsibility as well.
These things never work at all.
Can you imagine the trauma it would cause if a child were to inadvertently see a nipple? Unthinkably horrible.
Kids shouldn't be on the internet unsupervised, that's the parents' responsibility. The internet shouldn't have to cater to a bunch of brats that shouldn't be on these platforms in the first place, the internet was never meant for children.
I talk constantly with my kids and they're preteen and already having sex talks. Maybe more parents need to stop being lazy shits?
Unfortunately, most parents are not tech savvy and don't understand Twitch or how kids use the internet at all. On the face of it to most parents it just looks like a gaming thing. To these people the internet is basically platforms like Facebook on their phones. When they eventually hopefully catch little Johnny watching furry penises on Twitch it's already too late and a lot of parents lack even the parenting skills to deal with that appropriately. Sadly, it doesn't take much intelligence to procreate.
Personally, I've just blocked Twitch outright on my firewall with this change in policy for my kids and continue to monitor what they do as always. But fortunately unlike the majority of parents I actually know how to deal with it either way.
Different approach but I don't block anything. I watch twitch streams but show my kids what's out there. Basically the world is fair play just be aware of where everything is coming from. I don't get half the shit on twitch but damn those women know their demographics lol
If they want to look at this stuff I'm not naive enough to think they won't find a way to do so. But I'm not about to make it as easy as being recommended it by Twitch just because Bezos wants more ad revenue.