Twitch is finally coming to terms with its responsibility as a king-making microcelebrity machine, not just a service or a platform. Today, the Amazon-owned company announced a formal and public policy for investigating streamers’ serious indiscretions in real life, or on services like Discord or Twitter.
Last June, dozens of women came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against prominent video game streamers on Twitch. On Twitter and other social media, they shared harrowing experiences of streamers leveraging their relative renown to push boundaries, resulting in serious personal and professional harm. Twitch would eventually ban or suspend several accused streamers, a couple of whom were “partnered,” or able to receive money through Twitch subscriptions. At the same time, Twitch’s #MeToo movement sparked larger questions about what responsibility the service has for the actions of its most visible users both on- and off-stream.
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Source: Twitch Will Act on ‘Serious’ Offenses That Happen Off-Platform | WIRED