Following the outcry over some controversial upcoming changes to their advertising guidelines, Twitch was forced to do some damage control and issued a statement on social media to address these concerns. However, the response to the statement was dubious, as most users continued to call Twitch out over its policymaking, despite the swift turnaround in issuing a statement.

Earlier, Twitch announced some upcoming changes to its policies concerning third-party advertisements that would have taken effect in early July 2023. In short, the planned changes would restrict the kinds of overlays streamers could use to advertise for a charity or a product brand, including a ban on burned-in ads. It would have also restricted the size of the ad overlays to a paltry 3% of screen space, which is not much area to work with. Coupled with tensions still boiling over the current revenue split between Twitch and streamers, the policy changes received overwhelmingly negative feedback. On Twitter, popular streamer Asmongold called for a boycott of Twitch and threatened to pull his channel and OTK's content off of Twitch if the planned policies went through.

Three hours after Twitch's policies were revealed, the Amazon-owned service issued an apology on social media. In a statement, Twitch said it "missed the mark" with the new policy's language, and admitted it was overly broad in its scope. Twitch further stated it would not limit any streamer's ability to take sponsorships, and that it would continue to allow streamers to take these deals as a method for channels to earn revenue. However, the apology stopped short of a full, public rescinding of the policy changes, which was not enough for most content creators and users on social media. Some Twitch streamers replied with their displeasure and openly considered leaving Twitch altogether for another platform.

We missed the mark with the policy language and will rewrite the guidelines to be clearer. Thank you for sharing your concerns, and we appreciate the feedback. We’ll notify the community once we have updated the language.

— Twitch (@Twitch) June 6, 2023

It is not clear at the time of writing when Twitch would release a revision to the policy or fully rescind it due to the backlash. While social media was quick to criticize Twitch management and Twitch CEO Dan Clancy for being out of touch, some content creators took the time to remind their colleagues to keep alternative methods to streaming and content creation open, including short-form content on sites like TikTok and YouTube.

Suffice it to say, Twitch's policy changes of late have not been popular. However, with viewership from Kick and Rumble on the way up, it remains to be seen what the long-term effects of Twitch's decision-making will be.

Posted: Jun 10, 2023 12:51 pm
Related Forum: Media Forum

Source: https://gamerant.com/twitch-statement-guideline-changes-community-backlash/