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Following the ASMR fiasco on Twitch, Imane "Pokimane" Anys took to social media to call out the platform. In a video, she talked about how the lack of organizing and labeling has led to this issue.
By now, most netizens and Twitch users are aware of the debacle that took place on June 19th. Kaitlyn "Amouranth" Siragusa and Jenelle "Indiefoxx" Dagres got banned due to streaming overly sexual ASMR content.
While Twitch has provided no official reason, it's safe to assume that parameters were violated.
The internet was left divided, with some suggesting that the bans were unlawful as they two broke no rules, while others stated that this was a long time coming. Irrespective of opinions, Pokimane had a few things to say regarding the incident, causing much outrage and debate online over the weekend.
Also read: Amouranth and Indiefoxx banned on Twitch following controversial 'ASMR' streams
Pokimane calls out Twitch for failing to improve themselves
In a video, Pokimane talked about how the platform's inability to take action over time has led to this situation. According to her, the issue is not complicated, but Twitch has to act to resolve it.
She began by saying:
"I did call it. When we talked about the hot-tub meta, I said, listen, Twitch, it doesn't matter if you make a new section for this or ban these individual people because they will find another way to push the envelope. I guess maybe everybody called it, but it's not specifically the hot-tubs that was the issue. The problem was that Twitch has no way of categorizing 'sexually suggestive content.' On a platform where the most viewed channels are extremely forward-facing, you're creating an inevitable timebomb for yourself essentially."
And indeed, the envelope was pushed too far, which led to Amouranth and Indiefoxx getting banned. However, as Pokimane said, the issue itself is with Twitch, which fails to categorize "sexually suggestive content" on its platform.
Additionally, the content is showcased on the homepage, creating a particular impression on viewers as to the nature of the platform itself. Pokimane stated:
"Twitch basically implemented a bandaid fix as opposed to treating the root cause. It's not about the symptoms. It's the root cause which is your TOS (Terms of Service) and your lack of content organization and labeling. You just need to give your mods and admins powers to basically label certain channels as sexually suggestive. If a stream is labeled as sexually suggestive, and it's something that you don't want to ban from the platform, you also don't want to incentivize. Channels like that just shouldn't be shown in the discovery feed or certain categories. So only the specific followers of that channel can see it, but random kids on the website can't."
Pokimane suggested that rather than blaming streamers, Twitch's TOS needs to be fixed to avoid future problems. Also, giving mods and admins the power to label and organize content will be the saving grace for the platform.
Rather than banning content that falls within the parameters from the platform, properly labeling and categorizing them would solve a lot of issues and help avoid situations like this in the future.
Given that there are kids on the platform, proper labeling would stop promoting these channels to the general viewers and would only be shown to followers rather than on the discovery feed.
It's yet to be seen how fast Twitch addresses this issue because the underlying problem is that actual ASMR content creators are losing out, not just in terms of views but also in revenue.
If larger streamers continue to piggyback on the category unopposed, it's only a matter of time before smaller creators begin looking for greener pastures. Twitch will have to make a decision, and soon.
Watch the entire video here:
