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Twitch allowing more nudity after disproportionately banning female streamers. Twitch confirmed its policy banning nudity was sexist.
Of course, on seeing this news I immediately wondered why it would count as "punishing" women to prevent them from doing something men don't generally have the option of doing (that is, making money by flashing breasts). Why don't we say it "levels the playing field" to prevent women from using their sex appeal to crush their competitors on a gaming platform? I was going to do a great Simpsons callback and everything, "Twitch became a hardcore pornography platform so gradually I didn't even notice," I had this whole post I was going to write about the sexual appeal of females versus males, maybe do a little amateur evo-psych ("as a treat!")--
--and then the whiplash hit.
Twitch Reverses Policy Allowing ‘Artistic Nudity,’ Citing AI’s Ability to Create Realistic Images
Here is Twitch's reversal of its... reversal? The meat is straightforward:
I guess someone realized that if you allow streamers to turn your site into OnlyFans with Vidya, then the women are going to drop their tops and the men are going to just... use filters? (I don't actually know, I don't use Twitch because I play video games and have no interest in watching others do so, but I am decrepit and out of touch so whatever. I have an Amazon Prime account so sometimes I pop over to Twitch if there's an incentive or something but otherwise it's a mystery to me.)
Now I'm left pondering the apparent Fisherian runaway of human beings trying to become--virtually, at least--teenage-presenting (cat?)girls as quickly as possible. I hadn't previously considered the impact of AI on parasocial human relationships, and now I'm having a hard time considering anything else. But I also have to wonder--is the new policy re-sexist? Will it make any difference at all?
EDIT: From the helpful comments below, today I learned that Twitch is not just a video game streaming site, but also streams other activities like art creation; that the AI nudity concerns are not limited to filters/avatars but to art being produced on Twitch; and that Twitch's reverse-course was likely driven at least as much by AI "nudification" concerns as anything. I remain interested in the thought processes that led to the first change-in-policy, and in knowing what (if anything) actually happened on the server side to cause the rapid about-face! But I appreciate having the bits I did not understand explained to me.
The policy is broader than "don't flash your breasts." According to your link it prohibited any content that "deliberately highlighted breasts, buttocks or pelvic region." I have no trouble believing that women were modded for content that men got away with. If a guy did a squat stream that prominently displayed their ass (maybe for form demonstration reasons) would Twitch mod it for sexual content? What if a woman did the same? I have no trouble believing Twitch would mod the woman but not the man. I think there is a pretty straightforward sexist implication to "men are allowed to do this thing but women aren't."
Because the conception of Twitch rules as existing to level some competitive field between streamers is nonsensical? Should Twitch ban streamers who are too good at games, because they'll get more viewers by being better? Should Twitch ban face cams, because more attractive streamers will get more viewers? Or maybe mandate face cams! No hiding for you uggos, you might get undeserved views! Make everyone use a voice modulator to have the same voice, some people might have nicer voices that lead to more viewers!
Wat? How many men on Twitch do you think are currently using filters to become women to get people to watch and sub?
You didn't need to put this here, it's apparent from the rest of your post.
Wat. What fraction of twitch streamers do you think are involved in this "Fisherian runaway?" What fraction of, say, the top 100 or 1000 streamers?
I'm going to go with "Enough that Twitch felt the need to substantially revise its policy twice in two days."
You don't seem to think this is a big deal, and probably that's true, but it's clearly a big enough deal.
I'm confused. Enough people were showing NSFW material Twitch thought was inappropriate that they reversed course. This seems quite different from your description of humans trying to become "teenage-presenting (cat?)girls."
I'm confused too, I guess.
My comment about Fisherian runaway was related to the AI stuff... like, if lewds are permitted and lewds get clicks, then yeah you're gonna get camgirls but also (I assume) you're going to get camboys using AI filters to present as camgirls for the views. But if that's not what was raising the AI concerns at Twitch then I guess I misunderstood something.
I think what you're really going to get is bots. Most of those bots will be female presenting because most of the dummies clicking botspam are thirsty simps. Some of the bots will be male presenting because some of the dummies clicking botspam are thirsty gay simps. From my experience in lonely hearts subreddit moderation, women are 100x less likely to fall for obvious spam accounts, even when they're lesbians. But every time we let a botspam post stay up longer than 2-3 hours, at least 5 male idiots will engage with it.
Bots can't (yet?) do "watch me play" videos, so SFW content creators are going to be easier to distinguish as real humans. NSFW stuff is so easily commoditized that bots can do it pretty well, especially if they also scrape real onlyfans accounts. Like all spam, the NSFW bot accounts only have to convert a handful of suckers to be profitable so if lewds are permitted, lewds will be overwhelmed with scammers. At this point, it's the equivalent of establishing a dedicated Viagra sellers group channel/board. That's going to be 99.9% spam instantly.
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