Twitch has updated its policy on sexual harassment, and added a new category to its AutoMod tool, to improve safety on its platform.
In a new blog post titled “How we’re combatting sexual harassment on Twitch”, the streaming platform highlights clarifications to its policy.
“While our policy remains largely unchanged, these updates are designed to make the policy easier to understand,” it reads. “Sexual harassment is never okay or acceptable. It harms our community, can make those targeted feel unsafe and disrespected, and can discourage them and others from participating on Twitch. We want our service to be the best and safest place to stream, and that means drawing clear boundaries around what behaviours are and aren’t allowed.”
To that end, additional language has been added to Twitch’s sexual harassment policy, which defines sexual harassment as follows:
“We define sexual harassment to encompass non-physical behaviors of a sexual nature that cause users to feel uncomfortable, degraded, unsafe, or discouraged from participation. We prohibit unwanted comments-including comments made using emojis/emotes-regarding someone’s appearance or body, sexual requests or advances, sexual objectification, and negative statements or attacks related to a person’s perceived sexual behaviours or activities, regardless of their gender. We also do not tolerate the recording or sharing of non-consensual intimate images or videos under any circumstances, and may report such content to law enforcement.”