Archive of the text from the announcement at the time of this post:
To the Twitch Community,
Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen members of the community voice concerns about how we handle potentially harmful content. There is no place on Twitch for racism, hatred, or harassment of any kind, including antisemitism and Islamophobia. As our community has grown, we’ve endeavored to build Community Guidelines to prohibit these harms.
Twitch is, and will always be, about belonging. Each day, people come together on our service to build communities around shared interests, and to express themselves authentically. For this to be possible, we work hard to ensure that our community is a safe place.
Our Community Guidelines are foundational, and when we find content that breaks those rules, we take immediate enforcement action. This will always be the case.
Millions of streamers, with a wide variety of views and perspectives, spend time on Twitch. We recognize that some content, while allowed on our service, may be objectionable to some members of our community. The views shared by streamers on Twitch are not the views of Twitch nor are they my personal views.
We’re grateful for the feedback and input from our community. Our safety approach continues to build and evolve, as our service grows. We want to ensure that anyone can find their place on Twitch, and remain committed to ensuring that hate and harassment have no place here.
- Dan Clancy, Twitch CEO
Emphasis mine. This statement seems to take a defensive posture concerning the claims of "antisemitism" on the platform. However, with this message from the CEO of Twitch comes this announcement of changes to the platform regarding "Political Content and Sensitive Social Issues". [tweet]
Announcement Tweet
Explanation of new CCL guidelines
Screenshot of user settings page
The full classification, as seen on their website, is below for archival purposes.
Politics and Sensitive Social Issues
VII: Politics and Sensitive Social Issues
Twitch is a place for people to express themselves and discuss the world around them. We require streams to be labeled when the focus of the stream includes discussions and debates about political or sensitive social issues such as discussions about elections, civic integrity, war or military conflict, and civil rights. Examples of content that require a classification label include but are not limited to:
- Streams featuring former or current political officials if the content includes discussions with these individuals around public policies
- Live coverage or commentary on elections, civic processes, or election-related disputes
- Livestreams of protests, rallies, or civil unrest related to civil rights issues or government policies
- Discussing military conflicts, foreign policy decisions, or national security matters
- Discussing ideological or socio-political views on topics like gender, race, sexuality, or religion
- Discussing legislation related to a sensitive social issue such as reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, or immigration
Labeling not required:
Streams containing informational or educational content that aim to share knowledge in a neutral, fact-based manner, rather than engaging in any kind of advocacy for an issue or candidate. For example, sharing the history of how votes in the US presidential election are counted to determine the next President, or merely encouraging individuals to vote or register to vote.
Intermittent mentions of politics, politicians, or sensitive social issues are not required to have the Politics and Sensitive Social Issues label.
It's clear that, to appease the forces of the Zionist Entity, Twitch is now allowing users and advertisers to "self-censor" by opting out of "Political Content and Sensitive Social Issues". However, the loose definition of this category and the caveat at the end of the definition leave a lot to be desired.
Intermittent mentions of politics, politicians, or sensitive social issues are not required to have the Politics and Sensitive Social Issues label.
Feels as though this will leave all the "Gamer" chuds out of the category as they rail on the inclusion of black, trans, queer, etc. people within their games. Does this constitute "intermittent mentions"? Does this fall under "critique"? Who can say.
Also, under "labeling not required" we have this gem:
"Streams containing informational or educational content that aim to share knowledge in a neutral, fact-based manner, rather than engaging in any kind of advocacy for an issue or candidate"
Meanwhile, "Discussing ideological or socio-political views on topics like gender, race, sexuality, or religion" will land you in the "Political" gulag. I wonder, would hosting a stream containing informational and educational content regarding the history of oppression of the queer population be something that does not require a label? Or would the telling of that history be too "ideological or socio-political" in nature and require the "Political" label? How does one tell the history of slavery in America in a "neutral" way?
This might not cause the kinds of "waves" that the Hot Tub / Pool Party / Beach / Bikini / Artistic Nudity meta did. I'm not sure if we'll see the same kind of reversal of policy or excessive policy reworks happening as a result of this change. It does materially impact most of the "political" streamers by allowing advertisers to opt out of those broadcasts, but it remains to be seen how much of an impact that will have on those individuals.