Why Vtubers Get Twitch TOS Wrong?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
- VOD: • @GEEGA & All Things VT...
GEEGA:
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(Channel manager)
Friendly reminder: It's ok to disagree, it's not ok to be a dick
I'm watching.
Hi watching, I'm dad.
do you have a link for the full vod?
Will the ambassadors represent a small minority of Twitch, or Twitch themselves (ie. to defend against judgement and critisism and deflecting the nuances of argument, or actually people that have been voted into a role by vtubers in the community?
It's impossible to agree when their stance suggests that they don't want vtubers to have freedom to expression and at the same time arguing for it. Makes zero sense.
Why not just make a tag Hip shown, cant be missunderstood....
Can we be Richards?
Geega's perpetual levelheadedness in conversations helps brings so much clarity to everything she talks about
So glad she might join vShojo one day
Geega's professionalism was much appreciated here. The whole stream was actually very informative.
I can only see Geega represent our community
The issue isn't the rules that are the issue. It's the moderators & admins that don't enforce them correctly. A woman had sex on stream and got a 3 day ban. A vtuber talked about her previous mental health issues and got a 30 day ban. There needs to be a restructuring internally, and people def need to lose their jobs.
Edit: fixed a oversimplification
The worst part is, there are members of the enforcement team who have openly discussed their disdain for the vtubing community. At best, they do not have the appearance of impartiality and should be dismissed from their positions. It also seems that the vtubing hatred runs deep in the company as almost every event that mixes IRL and vtubers together ends up with some kind of controversy that seems to only negatively affect vtubers.
Reminder that the infamous "Artistic Nudity" policy that no one actually read, specifically, *by example,* endorsed strip teases on the platform. I cannot stress enough, that when I say by example, I do literally mean that they used strip teases as an example of what would be allowed under those new rules. Twitch has never been more clear about the kind of content they want to see on the platform than they were in that moment.
*EDIT:* I forgot to mention, that policy was also rushed out within a week of a controversy regarding certain female streamers implying they were streaming nude by having the camera cut just below their shoulders. It's obvious the policy was meant to protect real women exposing themselves on stream, and it's a clear example of how Twitch is willing to not just bend the rules, but literally re-write them to protect/facilitate that kind of content on their platform.
The problem is that you can restructure all you want but every person on earth has a bias
Unless you have 1 over worked employee managing the entire site, your going to have inconsistent enforcement of rules because every individual person has their own bias, no one can be truly 100% unbiased
Call a spade a spade. The 30 day ban Was Fallenshadow, i.e Shondo. And it probably wasn't her only ban or Was it?
@@TalisharI half-hate to be the scorched earth guy here, but those haters need to be removed, fired, or something. Cuz I’m pretty sure that kind of power shouldn’t be in the hands of hater. It’s just an abuse of power that overlaps into bullying, quite possibly the cyber kind.
Okay so this all sounds good, GEEGA did an amazing job with her professionalism but this doesn't answer the big issue about what punishments towards vtubers are so much heavier.
AsianbunnyX for example has, last I checked, been banned on twitch 14 times, and has never served longer then a few days (Correct me on this if I am wrong).
Shondo discusses her mental problems and is banned for 30 days.
MissBehavin spreads her vagina in full view of her camera, gaping it even, is banned for (iirc) 5 days.
Chromuchromu was banned mid-birthday stream because her avatar was labeled "youth risky" (she's a pink chibi looking thing, go look her up) for 7 days.
Kimmikka has sex live on stream, is only banned for 7 days (her account very new at the time this happened too)
Zentreya was warned and threatened with a ban if she did not change her swimsuit outfit. (This was going on at the same time girls were streaming naked with fake censor bars over their chests).
The enforcement is nowhere near equal, and thats the question folks want an answer to. Why it is so biased, and why we can not have impartiality.
If I had to guess, going by tech compaby and advertiser “logic”, Vtubers effectively function as living cartoon characters, and cartoons are more likely to appeal to both minors and casual audiences in general, thus the need to be stricter.
Alternatively, Twitch has systematically been worn down in the long censorship battle against 18+ cam streamers, so they’ve effectively given up on that one and refocused their efforts on Vtubers, an industry that is much newer and thus theoretically easier to control and regulate.
@@dragonchip8775 There was a twitch mod in Missbehavin's stream asking her why she's doing this. She claimed to have "accidentally" streamed her onlyfans content on twitch. 5 day ban...
@@dragonchip8775 exactly my point
The VRChat vs VTuber argument from Dan is BS I'm sorry. If VRChat has a "known" possibility of being exposed to levels of attire, then why can't VTubers just have the ability to mark themselves for 18+ audiences. EXACTLY What Geega says!
"Don't tell me you're Sailor Moon when you're Gushing Over Magical Girls." I got a lil giggle out of that. Good comparison, too.
This was the moment when I was like "OK, I think miss Mary is actually a right person in a right place".
I didn't understand that part. Could somebody clarify that for me? Is the latter a lewd version of a magical girl show?
@@SariusxX show follows a villain who loved magical girls then discovers she really like BDSM on said magical girls. Very nsfw
@@broggl I see, thank you!
@broggl yeah it sure was a surprise watching that 😂
A particular vtuber I watch recently (a couple months ago at this point) got a 6 day ban due to "inappropriate attire" even though it was the EXACT same model that they had been using for close to a year at that point the only different was that they added as new shirt color toggle. The style, opacity, length, and overall aesthetic stayed the same the shirt's color, and logo was just different, and they got hit with the "your outfit shows off too much hips" argument.
The entire argument about VRchat having an age rating and Twitch not having it goes out the window when you flag your channel as for Mature Audiences.
So you should be able to have whatever attire you want on your Vtuber avatar if your channel is 18+.
thats what he also meant about categories and labels working differently, basically what matters the most is the category, there are rules for what is and is not allowed based on that category period. Like he said Hot tubs and VR chat have different rules than Minecraft and Just Chatting, otherwise you end up with more categories like ASMR where you have a 50/50 chance on what you will see.
There's also an issue where just because someone is 18+ doesn't mean they want to see half naked vtubers. So it's not just an age category. It would need to be a label that essentially labels anything the vtuber does as nsfw. And that's also not a perfect fit since for some, the most nsfw thing about them is short shorts.
I also want to specify, that there's nothing wrong with half naked vtubers, and especially nothing wrong with not wanting to see it. This is just a lot more complicated than it seems
@@atk9989 An unspoken part here is I am pretty sure as an advertiser that you can have the option to have more specified targeting of ads, so if you're an advertiser who wants to be specifically advertising to the PG/Minecraft kind of audience, you don't really want to be wasting your money sending those ads to the adult fans of half naked anime girl streamers with minecraft in the background when you assumed you were going to be showing them to a younger demographic. Same that more mature rated advertisers might be okay putting ads up on a more risque category but not wanting to have their ads played during a Minecraft stream targeted at children.
@@jadencreates5220 I don't want to see a half naked real person on a stream either. if I wanted to see that, I'd go to Melody's other platform.
Unfortunately their words aren't reflected in their actions at all. Categories and tags aren't relevant when clearly the same actions are given unequal enforcement both in strictness and magnitude of punishment.
People aren't mad at the violet vs purple enforcement, they are mad at the pink vs blue enforcement, sure it's not black and white but it clearly isn't as close as purple and violet.
This was actually one of the reasons I unfollowed a fleshtuber on Twitch. I'm still subscribed to them on YT, but their Twitch stream that day had them changing their outfits every once in a while when a donation goal was hit. One of those outfits was literally just a bikini. Nothing super skimpy, but you could still see quite a lot of her body. Guess what? She had nothing happen to her stream despite the skimpy outfits and lack of any tags indicating the stream as "18+ only."
Megalodon had been banned temporarily for not having an 18+ tag on her stream or marking it as a "hot tub stream" or whatever where she shook her virtual tiddies for a quick laugh. It all just seems like another one of those stupid mindsets of "if it's animated, then it must be for kids" or something. It's just stupid.
GEEGA was a good choice for this.
I'm always impressed by how smart and articulate she is
5:29 This is a great question by Geega, I just wish they pushed a little more deep. Especially because this labeling type content classification already exists (it's literally called content labels), you can mark your stream "Intended for certain audiences", with sub categories like "politics and sensitive social issues", "drugs and intoxication", "gambling", "mature rated game", "profanity", "sexual themes", "violence and gore".
So his point about not wanting to do labeling because of split categories is BS. They already do that.
Why isn't there a category for "mildly suggestive"? A label for the things vtubers have been having issues with that don't fit into the description of the "sexual themes" category, it's something inbetween that and pg13.
I would argue the problem is one of UX. Currently, there is no way to advanced filter for streams, and that's why split categories are a problem. A split category wouldn't be a problem if I could apply a filter easily that actually separates that category correctly. The content of people isn't 1 note. You can't categorize everything into exactly 1 thing. Just let them do what they want, with the correct label, and let people properly filter out what they do want to see and what they don't.
Big load of BS out of that CEOs mouth
Because there have been Vtubers, in 1-peice swimsuits, in the hot tub category, with a hot tub prop/background, and props, and they got banned, while Obviously more covered than pretty much Any of the non-vtubers in that category.
And so on, with clothing, Vtubers get judged several times more harshly than People do, they get Bans, for things that people don't.
Edit- I tried to reply to this fryinghardhat in this thread but my response was deleted. Thank you Hirome for saying much of the same things but better and much more.
I don't think it's the CEOs bs but the twitch hiring of admins and moderators with bias on moderation to some compared to others
@@fryinghardhat5152
It is the CEO's BS
He is trying to whitewash the entire history of the issue as if all fault lay with the vtubers for violating policies, even if unintentionally.
He knows better, this is Why he did this on a Vtuber channel, to pretend like he is sympathizing and the voice of reason, while never Once outlining efforts on Their end to make the rules more clear, especially to Their moderation teams, so the purge is still on against vtubers.
@@fryinghardhat5152 It is not directly the CEO's fault that it's happening, but it is ultimately his responsibility to ensure that there are people in place whose job it is to ensure that things are running properly, that rules are being applied fairly, and that there are checks in place to prevent bias from becoming rampant. If that isn't the case, which it is isn't, it is the CEO's fault. There doesn't appear to be any kind of repercussions for admins or moderators that abuse their power regularly. There is no recourse through which a streamer can report abuse by an admin, it isn't even publicly known which admin did the banning, if it was automated, or who reviewed the banning, so there's no accountability or oversight. There's never a timestamp to a specific issue that led to the disciplinary action, there's no explanation of the rule or how it was violated in any particular instance. Honestly, I'm shocked that no streamers have sued Twitch for the lack of transparency from an employer regarding disciplinary action, it's a violation of employment rights, it's unfair treatment and you can't defend against it in any way because there's no disciplinary discussion, just an automatic punishment that doesn't require any kind of approval from a higher up. These are just a handful of issues that come to me off the top of my head, really simple departmental changes could make the whole process very transparent and thereby making it much more difficult to abuse the rules. Each of these issues lies squarely in the responsibility of the CEO to address at least on a department head basis. This is all particularly valid because Twitch is based in California, which has some pretty heavy employment standards to prevent workplace abuse.
@@fryinghardhat5152I agree. I think it's more along the lines of some admins not respecting that vtubers are to be treated the same as people and some people interpreting the rules less favorably than reasonable.
This shit could be easily fixed with a "allow mature content" option in the user settings, DeviantArt does it, Pixiv does it FA does it, simplest fix ever yet Twitch doesn't seem to be doing anything like that and always brings up some long ass explanation of nothing to justify them not doing anything to find a middle ground or solution, like half the video was "yes we could try to find a middle ground or do something but nah"
Hell, Dan did a stream with latam streamers some long time ago and I was the mod for one of those streamers I suggested asking about the broken tags search in the explore page (can't search for more than 1 tag at the same time which makes the user generated tags useless btw) and guess what, he said "we'll look into it" and they haven't fixed it yet lol
So imo there's this "we could fix it but we won't" attitude from the higher ups at twitch including the CEO and there's also the internal civil war going on between the PR team wanting to fix the unjustified bans to vtubers to make twitch look good and the mods/admins banning vtubers for whatever reason and not telling said reason to the affected streamers, there's also support not replying or giving vague replies
what is FA?
@mz00956 oh, you don't want to know, I just used it as an example for those who know
so why does twitch still allow irl streamers to be showing almost entirely skin while vtubers can get banned for hip over exposure?
just becuase your guidelines say they have to follow the same rules doesnt mean they get enforced equally
either irl streamers are allowed to constantly break and bend the rules, only get light slaps on the wrist when actually punished and or vtubers are being punished using the most extreme interpretations of the rules possible with more heavy punishments.
ill ask it simply, if i got to the front page of twitch not logged in what are the chances i can find attire that would be banned under a strict interpretation of twitches TOS that vtubers are normally held to and if so why is twitch promoting them?
There's a channel I found called Think Before You Sleep that called out that very thing in response to the Megalodon situation. Pointing out how anyone could find an 18+ style stream on the front page with barely any effort and no account needed.
@@andrewnigo61 Meg specifically was trying for a ban, I wouldn't use that situation since it was entirely manufactured.
I did not have Gushing Over Magical Girls being mentioned in interview with the CEO of an Amazon owned company on my Bingo card for this year.
Cultured employee
yea wtf lmao
Okay
GEEGA killed it.
I agree with two points that some other people are saying. One of the problems with Twitch TOS for me is unequal enforcement of the rules for Vtubers and flesh streamers, to the point where there seems to be a double standard where flesh streamers who break TOS get much lighter punishments than Vtubers. The other issue I've seen is Twitch moderation not actually telling Vtubers why they got banned so they can avoid doing the same things that got them banned in the future.
If we are required to use the classification "Sexual themes" if we stream with such themes and we have the specific chat rule that ONLY ADULTS can watch then the whole argument about minors/ people who don't want to see such content shouldn't matter.
Unironically, I think Geega is one of the most suitable people to manage things like that (PR, analytics, "behind the scenes" talk about youtubing/streaming)
PS: Throwing the idea into the wind, but with the recent happenings (with one vtuber being hacked and the other doxxed), I think there would be somewhat of a need to talk about security, that would be very useful for wide array of content creators, especially the "normies" that generally don't know or bother to dive deep into that side of things.
I think somebody reasonable like Geega, or any other vtuber that has similar background and/or more or less familiar with cybersecurity practices would be perfect for creating that kind of content for the community.
Her original submission to join Vshojo was for behind the scenes and management. Coming frim Corpo irl jobs, she has the best sense of speaking to others and getting her point across
@@lainwolf They asked me directly to join and I accepted, but they joked that I'd be a valuable employee rather than just a member during those talks. There was no initial hiring attempt like you're thinking, and I never submitted anything to join - I was scouted
@@lainwolf Nah, it was a half-joke by GunRun and response was something along the line of "Have you seen my rates for that?". Geega refers to that in some other vid
Dan's point kinda falls apart when you can set your stream to 18+ the expectation there should always be that your are in a mature environment
And the streamers (mostly) enforce that themselves, with absolutely zero help from Twitch of any kind. And they do a good job of it.
@@RvLeshrac I almost entirely stick to 18+ tagged streams. Not because the re is "the chance I will see more vtuber titty" but because I prefer the atmosphere, and the lower chance of having a bunch of tone-deaf children in the chat making things less fun for everyone else.
No ban for you
Bc you are anime girl
I don't think Dan sounded like he even believed what he was saying.
Yes. He sounds like a politician trying to save face after doing something that everyone hates by gaslighting everyone into thinking that the rule does not mean what it means. It's complete BS.
Are you smoking? He was pretty straight forward and while obviously there is issues everything he said is completely reasonable lol.
Separate the ASMR category in two categories and add a tag similar to the +18 one, instead of making up excuses.
What an utter load of nonsense, this just shows me just how needlessly convoluted the rules are, so your model can be different depending on the game you're playing, if you so much is dare to play this game than your model's not allowed if you play this game then it's fine, and they change the policy frequently as they themselves state, if I didn't know any better I'd say these policies are designed to make life hell, this is bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy. Dan thank you for making me more angry at the rules.
2:03 that is the most laughable BS lie. "attire guidlines same for a person as vtubers" that made me laugh the shameless lie.
Okay, so here's the thing with that "purple vs violet" thing. Yes, I believe the subjective nature of things that aren't super clear can be up for interpretation. But that doesn't change the fact that it still stems from Twitch's poorly defined rules and regulations. Subjectivity comes from a lack of clarity and if people are unclear, then the rules, as written, are insufficient. Purple vs violet is similar enough where the blur is understandable... but once you start getting to purple vs black, then we start to scratch our heads.
So how do you fix this? Well, for starters, you acknowledge the subjectivity and incorporate that into your written rules and guidelines. Literally write it into EACH SPECIFIC guideline that the application of this rule is subject to the moderator's individual perception. And this needs to be written specifically for EACH individual rule that can be interpreted in a subjective way.
On the back end, content moderators who strike down content must write a report for each content violation they flag and give clear reasons, backed up with visual and/or audible evidence to support their decision. If it has no evidence, it should not be upheld.
You can also incorporate a new platform-wide rule within the community guidelines: "Envelope pushing, in poor faith, with regards to these community guidelines, will not be tolerated."
What does this mean? It means that attempting the skirt the line for what is and isn't acceptable would, in and of itself, be considered a violation that could earn you a suspension. Even if what you're doing is _technically_ allowed, you can still receive a suspension if you are perceived as doing so in bad faith.
Finally, and this is most important, remain consistent. And when I say "remain consistent," I don't mean in comparison to other users. I mean that if a person gets suspended, they should be given a reason as to why they where suspended and guidelines on how they can attempt to avoid violating the terms in the future. You can then see if they correct their behavior in the future. If they make strides to fix themselves but don't quite make it, then hit them with a suspension again while acknowledging their efforts but request they do more.
And, above all, make sure your moderators are on the same page. If one moderator clears a user to do something, another moderator shouldn't be able to come around and strike that user for it.
You can't just hide behind "subjectivity" when people call you out on questionable moderation responses.
The only pushback I have for this is, we shouldn't be enshrining subjectivity. If it can't be interpreted objectively, it needs to be scrubbed out entirely. Subjectivity just allows bias and is easily abused. We already have an appearance of a group of staff at Twitch throughout multiple disciplines being biased against vtubers due to a member of their staff being vocal about their disdain towards vtubers and other smaller communities they feel are tangential. They flag a video they don't like due to their bias, they bring it within their group and their group approves their decision, unfairly targeting and banning the content creator because enforcers are now a click. This is why a proper law is supposed to be objective and limit the ability to interpret enforcement as possible. The laws that are poorly written and allow subjectivity in them end up causing the most damage and issues surrounding them. One of the checks for a properly written law is that it's supposed to be clear and objective and not be subjective at all. The issue is that the folks that evaluate a law before signing it are often the drafters of such law and find themselves and their laws clear of any such issues.
@@Talishar The thing with laws is that they're our best attempt at writing rules in an objective way and even those still need a whole infrastructure, including multiple levels of courts, so that they function. Laws by design acknowledge that they can't be objective, that's why you have all of that infrastructure. So you need to acknowledge that there's gonna be some amount of intrinsic subjectivity, then you need to create infrastructure to deal with it and to deal with itself, cause as you said, infrastructure can be compromised by groups of people who want to abuse it. You can also see this is the "real" world in government, designing "good" systems and infrastructure that are robust and self correcting is hard
@ Many laws are actually objective. The complex infrastructure is that we allow the folks writing the laws to also make the initial judgement that said laws pass muster and then put an arbitrarily large hurdle for people to jump over to redress it because the people who write the laws also make the rules and choose the people who will review and pass judgement on those laws. Those layers though aren't for subjectivity but for Constitutionality. There is a difference.
If you look at the criminal codes, there's little to no subjectivity in it. It clearly defines the crime to painstaking detail as well as the range of punishment that arises if convicted. Generally, the subjectivity that could be seen is in determining punishment based on the subjectivity of how badly they broke that law. Often times though, they rule a lot of that subjectivity out and use very objective conditions such as the number of times the law has been broken in the past and whether it was the very same law before.
The laws clearly define the entire process, from beginning to end, of what happens to a person should they be charged with breaking the law. Whether it goes to a judge or if you get a jury, etc. Twitch and other media sites do not do this at all. Not even close. They often don't clearly define what you could be violating nor the parameters of what is considered a violation. Nor do they have a transparent process for deliberation or determination of a violation. They also generally don't have any transparency in appeals so the person getting hit with a violation usually doesn't have any way to really defend themselves. Nor is there any definition or transparency on divvying out the punishment. It seems completely arbitrary and capricious.
He literally states that what is considered a violation isn't really given by Twitch themselves and that they rely on people to reach out to other content creators that may have gotten the stick to build a picture of what that could be. That's a massive red flag that your rules around violations is absolutely hot garbage and needs to be overhauled. The CEO of the company literally said that they can't define their own rules and relies on content creators to try and detective things out amongst themselves.
@@Talishar I don't know if I agree.
These are guidelines and not laws. Something that is *_illegal_* needs to be explicit. There can be no subjectivity to that at all. But we aren't talking about laws, we are talking about guidelines and user preference. You cannot explicitly define user preference. A viewer on the platform might consider "exposed hips" as adult content while other viewers won't. Neither viewer is wrong in their opinion, which makes it exceedingly difficult to explicitly define the guideline.
As for moderator bias, that's a completely different can of worms that really won't be addressed by re-assessing the guidelines. That's an internal issue that needs to be addressed separately.
@ Guidelines hold legal weight and when it affects someone's bottom line, they can come back and bite you if you aren't specific and clear. Team TH-cam learned this the hard way when they got sued by Steven Crowder when they tried to ban him under the most obscure and subjective rules they had and immediately settled when he whipped out the lawyer. They're banking on the vast majority of users and content creators not having a legal team and can abuse that to their heart's content. My company has guidelines for employees authorized to speak publicly and they're extremely specific and objective. They came from the PR and legal teams. Most companies and corporations have such strict guidelines for their employees making official statements. Amazon has strict guidelines for what those representing them can say or the content they create officially for the company. Yet Twitch can't seem to figure this out at all. Twitch is finding themselves painted in this corner because they are trying to cater to questionable IRL content and skirt the rules and laws of that while covering for a large section of staff who have a hate boner for another subset of their content creators. Again, before vtubers, they were taking swings on the regular against gaming streamers with some of the biggest stretches of TOS violation claims under the sun at the time.
These guidelines control many people's income. They're extremely vague with no transparency at all. If used in such a way as to appear to be prejudiced, that's going to crank up legal liability through the roof and put the company's reputation in jeopardy. Most legacy media companies have a very well laid out set of guidelines for their showrunners and content creators and are very transparent as to how they do things in order to avoid eating a lawsuit. Twitch is banking on what Alphabet banked on in that 99.9% of Twitch content creators not having the financial means or the balls to lawyer up. It's also why corpo vtubers seem to be able to get around and dodge much of the flak than the indies. The corpos have legal teams and they aren't afraid to flex them.
It's not that hips is banned it's that the area of hips isn't defined very well nor is it enforced equally. Again, there are women on Twitch with only a string on their hips and not getting smacked by the ban hammer.
Sorry this still sounds like vtubers are being treated with a different set of rules. A box with a irl person being filmed is the same as a vtuber model. They should be treated the same in that regard. And vrchat is more or less a platform not a game. You can load up vrchat and go play games in vrchat. So his excuse for the different treatment there is bad too. Vrchat models are avatars just like the box in the corner for an irl streamer
The current TOS very clearly outlines that there are three distinct sets of rules: rules for streamers (fleshtubers), rules for vtubers, and rules for VR Chat streamers. When Dan says that the rules are the same for both streamers and vtubers (around the two and a half minutes mark), he's either being disingenuous or (more likely) he just doesn't know what the rules are.
@@SketchyClipper The clothing rule is what is being talked about for that section, and its actually specified that VTubers must follow the same clothing guidelines as irl streamers. There are not two separate rule sets in the TOS for them in that regard. VRChat specifically having its own ruleset is correct.
There's a larger issue beyond VTuber flaunting the lines. There's the double standard. Flesh streamer weren't held to the same standard at all. Either getting lighter punishment or scott free for similar or worse violation.
I agree with strict TOS as long as it's enforced equally.
That is 100% something that needs to be addressed.
Yep and that will still be an issue until they get their stuff together because I don't think people are as much upset at the "strict" guidelines, it's just the double standards.
@@DacianGradaMusic It's the complete lack of transparency around enforcement. People get banned, and *none of them* ever receive an adequate explanation for their bans. Anyone who actually knows why they were banned either knows in the moment that they fucked up, was intentionally baiting a ban, or has friends inside Twitch.
I don't think I'll ever get used to people being referred to ass "flesh streamers", or in some cases I've heard "fleshies"
@@DacianGradaMusic It is a twitch culture problem, the people working have more people who dislike anime and Asian cultures. Same thing is going on in steam.
I highly disagree with his interpretation of VRChat. It's not game with rating, it's basically social media in game. There are plenty of worlds full of adults and minors in same place. Happend to me plenty of times ask someone if they're woman or a kid because I couldn't tell. Also happend find minor pretending to be an adult woman just to join NSFW world. It's not like the game is rated 18+ like it's Call of Duty and parent buys it to 12 years old kid because that parent doesn't understand games. When I started playing VRChat I also expected it to be game with specific experiences for players but I learned quickly it's full of everything. Maybe not like specific platform but more like internet in general.
That's a long text.. But I'll put this in short: VRChat is a software. Twitch is not. Treat VRChat more as an MMO or Garry's Mod which both have similar functionality with differences of how you control the character in game.
that "i wish we had a way to help" we asked for clear pictures!!! give a highlighted temple
words are to easily confused and misunderstood. clear images with the areas marked and temples would solve the clothing issue with most vtubers. actually enforcing things the right way would also make a lot of people stop complaining
That whole "I wish we had a way to help" coming from the highest level of the whole site is just insulting.
7:47 It's almost like trying to institute some weird "subject based" methodology for segregating age restricted content from other content was a stupid ass move. Him talking about ASMR being "two very different categories sharing the same tag" was such bullshit; just split the damn category and stick a "suggestive" warning on one of them. Like, how are the companies struggling so god damn hard to solve the problem that TV solved generations ago.
Like actually, how fuckin hard would it be to just have a "content category" where you say what you are doing, and then also an "age rating" where you just pick from a drop down of like 5 options, could even steal the movie ratings since everyone already understands what they mean.
@@michaelmaguire4147 movie ratings is a bad example, since they differ across the world
@@michaelmaguire4147twitch has an 18 plus setting. I want to know why they're forcing e for everyone on a t for teen minimum site
@@michaelmaguire4147the reason is those rating systems were set up by regulation boards. And Twitch is reverse engineering it's guidelines based of what advertisers want. Honestly those ratings come with their own problems since you get movies where they're violent and scary but only have one fbomb and it's PG-13. But no one wants to make rated R movies because fewer people want to watch them namely children.
In Twitch's case they don't want nsfw stuff because the advertisers don't want it. And they are where the money comes from.
Also tv radio and movies aren't allowed to say or do certain things all together. There's a list of words you can't say, and once upon a time, queer characters were only allowed to be villains in movies. They didn't have it figured out any better
There is also a fundamental issue underlying TOS bans, is they are not clear or concise bans.
They are ambigious by design, they rarely pin point the specific issue that got them in breach, it rarely seems to be on any sort of reasonable scale where punishment fits the offense.
Its a stressful moment for most streamers to find out they are banned, and not know why. What they actually did, what the issue was, often feeling like they didn't do anything wrong, while their socials blow up wildly speculating why they were banned.
The TOS bans, also seem to be very closed off communication. If Twitch was truely a "partner" with streamers, they should assign a case officer to anyone who is just banned. Open up a line of communication asap, walk them through the ban, if they appeal do it as soon as possible, if its upheld. If the streamer is a victim (like a fraud or hacking) be pro-active and help them.
The sooner a streamer who is wrongly accused gets back, the better for Twitch and better for the mental health of the streamer... its better for the platform.
If the streamer did wrong, and admits fault and improves, and Twitch helps them and educates them to be better streamers... its better for the platform.
So this is just pointless, the ceo just said corpo lines without axtually answering anything. None of this answers why v tubers get so heavily punished yet irl softcore stars get nothing or a slap on the wrist.
If anything I wasted almost 13min learning that the ceo is chill but calculated as he expertly side stepped answering anythi g outside "rules are to be followed"
Nice tactic there, Dan and Mary, I dig it. Hit em with the ol' G-light! It's because the VIEWERS don't want to see a particular streamer/model - even though they clicked on said stream and can just as easily click off of it. It's not the advertisers and money flow dictating what is and is not guchi. We're doing this for YOU, for your trust and safety, please understand. You have no control over yourself and don't know what is best for you to enjoy.
I'm still not entirely sold on the logic here. Two points:
First, I get that there is a difference in expectations between VRChat and V-tubing and that this leads to different enforcement standards as different expectations guide judgment on what different things one ought to look out for. However, if the solution then is to manage expectations, then I do not see why Dan is so hesitant to utilize BOTH categories and labels in order to do so. He brought up the issue with hybridising the ASMR category, but he did not really explain why this would be an issue. I mean, he said it himself that there are two very distinct audiences that enjoy the ASMR category, and you would think that a hybrid category would be perfect for something like this. Is he worried about what this might do to overall viewership if hybridisation becomes algorithmically salient? Is it more like an advertisment concern in that this choice will put off advertisers who would have not been put off had the category remained unhybridised?
Next, it seems as if both Dan and Mary have an issue with overly specified regulations, in that they become very exploitable. I get that: the more you make explicit the more you make explicit about what you can get away with that would otherwise be intuitively objectionable. However, when Mary says, "when you are expressing what you want to do, make sure your audience knows what they're in for", the ability for content creators to do this is not granted solely by having nonspecific regulations, so this does not constitute an argument against over-specificity. If what makes something overly specific is the consequent increase in exploitability past a certain threshold, then one could argue that having vague regulations allows this outcome as well given that vagueness in rules increases the range of interpretations applicable to those rules, including those that, again, may otherwise be intuitively objectionable. If the issue instead is that, by having vague rules Twitch won't be held as liable for erring in their enforcements as when specific rules are in place - you won't be as able to pinpoint a specified statement of fact that you can use to indicate that an instance of enforcement clearly is inconsistent with that statement's meaning - then you shouldn't make the issue out as concerning expression of intention and expectation management.
just my two cents.
its not a tos issue.. its more like a someone at twitch hates vtubers and punishes them whenever possible for both no reason or a minor thing...while giving fleshtubers a light tap on the wrist for doing terrible stuff
This, you can tell because they still get unfairly long bans even when it’s not for this kind of “violation”
There's an obvious disconnect between what the guidelines are supposed to be and how the mods are enforcing them. They either need to be retrained or replaced.
I say replace the mods of Twitch because they clearly HATE VTubers!!! If Dan could fire and replace all of them then Twitch will start healing
I expected a none answer coming into this video... and thats exactly what i got.
Worse even is that they recognize how unclear their guidelines are and the issue we as Vtubers have. Yet have not bothered to do any thing "yet".. i also have no faith in these "ambassadors" seeing as twitch ambassadors have been selfish and power hungry in the past.
Also. HE said VTubers in hot tube section are oke to wear hot tube section clothing... yet some still got banned....
Ok sure, but please explain the disparity between the harshness of the enforcement.
For example there's the classic, "woman has sex live on stream gets a 7 day suspension" vs Shondo obviously joking about killing herself in minecraft getting a 30 (that was reduced because it became such a source of outrage)
Correction: The woman who had sex on stream got 3 days.
I can give the barest benefit of doubt, and say "that isn't Dan's direct fault, that has to do with the biases of the Twitch moderation staff." People need to make Dan aware that Twitch admin staff needs some firing and restructuring because it's pretty explicitly unfair on the user and viewer end of things.
There is no disparity.
@@grafzeppelin4069Elucidate, elaborate, prove.
@silverlight6074 That is a humane assumption, but we have done this song and dance countless other times on countless other facets of life, don't we? Like when a captain can't control his subordinates, a teacher can't discipline her students, CEOs can't control their own companies: what use is an authority figure if at the end of the day they can't change the course of what they have power over? We can of course draw the line by evaluating said figurehead's effort compared to the general situation. Now, has Dan Clancy shown observable efforts regarding seemingly disproportionate punishment handing? and the clarity of said punishment that comes into question like when Twitch refuses to say the reason of ban?
What I don't understand is that there are labels to restrict your content for "mature audiences" and "sexual content" --- so why is the concern for "KIDS" still there? IF they go to 18+ content and mature audience content, that's on them and their parents, not content creators
My guess would be that advertisers are pushing it.
2:17 why is the CEO not an expert on the nuances and enforcement of policy on his own platform? That sounds insane to me
Because you have more responsibilities and expectations the further you move up the management ladder. A good comparison I can give you is this: An EMR , (Emergency Medical Responder) is going to have the basics of First Aid Memorized down to a T. Where as an EMT, will have access to a broader set of skills but lose of the basic skills because the new skills they have to learn, same with an AEMT up to a Paramedic. I know some first year Paramedics who've forgotten how to take Blood Pressure. It's just a normal thing.
@ Tldr: no excuses for Dan. He has a chain of command he can follow back down for questions and to give direction and guidance to prevent these issues. And the attire policy is just one aspect of a larger issue that people have that Geega neglected and Dan didn’t touch on, which is an unequal and abusive enforcement of policies
Only the next 2 sections beyond this are relevant to the initial post and your reply. Anything beyond that is just expanded criticisms i have of what was in the video after a bit of thought.
He should still be able to describe them and give a nuanced take. He was perfectly capable when he talked about the hot tub streams. Saying a certain attire isn’t allowed, but there’s some nuance where it is allowed under the conditions of being within an environment under a category. As well as a nuanced take to why he won’t separate asmr due to the idea of normalizing a bunch of sub-categories making things a nightmare essentially. He’s perfectly capable of giving an answer a good amount of thought. So that argument doesn’t track for me. He should be able to easily clarify with nuance.
He should also know what’s going on in his company, especially with all the complaints twitch publicly gets and for how long people have been complaining about the difference in how people get treated. Even if I accept that he doesn’t, are you honestly saying you think he wouldn’t know about the scandal involving someone having sex while streaming on his platform and only getting a 3 day ban while people get banned longer for doing less egregious offenses? If he does know, then he should absolutely know there’s a problem that needs resolved and answers people want, and he should be taking the time and responsibility to figure it out. If he doesn’t know, he shouldn’t be CEO, because with something that’s as big of a problem as that, he shouldn’t be asking for the results and how that was resolved due to the implications that would have on a platform that allows 13 yo and up on it. At minimum he should have people he can ask and give direction to who can fill him in on what’s going on. A chain of command that works both ways. I’m not going to give him an excuse just because he’s higher up the management ladder.
Rabbit trail:
And to add criticism for Geega based on this video, she should have pushed back pointing out how the policies themselves aren’t the issue, but the unequal enforcement in general, with the attire policy just being one more common aspect of a larger issue. While it has the biggest affect on the money they invest into making a model, it’s certainly not the only issue people have by far. That’s what so many people complain about.
Like how twitch initially banned shondo for a joke made under the guise of it being for her mental health, that in context was her being very grateful to the people who supported her, for 30 days compared to someone streaming themselves getting boned, or the rampant abuse of their updated art ToS got a week or less, or the streamer who streamed completely naked but kept the camera up to her cleavage. Iirc Anny got a different treatment having to serve her full ban, while some of the other streamers were let off early as well. Then there were the titty and ass streamers that used streaming on their body as an excuse to make their ass and tits the main focus of the streams. There are people who break tos multiple times that got less time than shondo and motherv3, who was banned for supposed false advertisement no one could find to my knowledge. Or megalodon who got banned, iirc, while streaming in a bikini under the correct category, while in a beach environment, following the rules as laid out by twitch. There are examples that are apart of attire and that fall out of attire, but everything comes down to issues of policy enforcement at the end of the day.
Dan didn’t actually address any of the issues any vtuber has actually had, and Geega didn’t push for any actual answers to the questions people have had or even try to show what the actual issues people have are, attire related or otherwise. Maybe she wanted to, but this video makes it look like it’s just corpo protecting corpo through some softball questioning with little to no follow up
@@Nikololollo_real You're acting like he started at the bottom of the Twitch corporate ladder and worked his way up, when he was hired on in a high-level position in 2019. This isn't the same as the difference between an EMR and an EMT, this is someone who's either unaware of the persistent issues with the site's moderation specifically as it applies to Vtubers (the charitable option), or doesn't care that the site's moderation team clearly has a bias when it comes to Vtubers (the more realistic answer) because his concern since taking over as CEO has been cutting costs by either screwing over creators or firing large swathes of the staff rather than fixing issues the site's userbase has had for years now.
Abdication of responsibility, which should logically award an equal amount of power
@ abdication would be to give up power or responsibility. He doesn’t give it up, he passes it on while still maintaining authority. For someone to have an equal amount of power they would have to be in the same position, the CEO, which they are not.
Now, you might give someone full trust and the authority necessary to do the job so you don’t have to step on their toes every time they try to do the job, but that doesn’t give them equal power or authority, nor would i say it strips you of responsibility to be knowledgeable about the topic. They still answer to him at the end of the day and can be stripped of authority by him.
If I’m the CEO of a company, and i own 8 locations, and i give someone the responsibility of going from store to store to make sure employees and customers alike are following the rules and to punish those who don’t appropriately, i would say it’s my duty to know the rules and the nuances of said rules. If I don’t, there’s no way for me to know if the store employees or customers are being treated fairly and that the enforcer isn’t abusing his power and authority. I would have to know what they are. The same would logically apply to Dan
He came on, what i assumed was a planned interview. He knew the question would be asked since he was talking with Geega. So much so, that he preemptively brought the question up himself. He was prepared enough for the question to be asked, but couldn’t answer it. Which makes it even worse considering this wasn’t something that was asked out of the blue to catch him off guard
Kirsche sent an email directly to twitch asking if it ok to play Huniecam Studio on twitch without getting banned and the official reply from twitch is "we don't know until you play it".
VTubers don't realise ToS is e forced based on whatever the admins are feeling that day.
This was nice to see the questions being answered seriously, and to understand some of the motivation behind the differences in application. Thanks for providing this.
It's awesome that Dan is going out of his way to talk about these issues. Most companies and CEOs dodge everything
Probably has to do with the fallout currently happening in social media... refugees voting with their feet... 🤔🤔
+1. I think it’s important, PR wise, to show that as head of your company you’re aware of the criticisms your audience has and you’re trying and are open to finding ways that hopefully bridge the discontent as well as protect your brand.
"We won't make categories because hybrid categories can be abused. Look at ASMR." So have an 'ASMR' category, and an '18+ ASMR' category. Tell people if they are in doubt, error on the side of caution when selecting their category or else they will be banned. Wow, I just solved twitch.
It's funny, too, because you can label your streams to say "May contain: sexual themes," so it seems to me Twitch also already solved Twitch but just forgot somehow?
So from the first few minutes, the pattern I'm getting is that there is a difference between what people expect to see on VR chat and what people expect to see on Twitch proper as just the streaming part of it, right? That difference in expectations in forms the difference in standards as to what is deemed acceptable attire
Like wearing a G-string to visit the beach is very different vibes and expectations than wearing a G-string to visit the Mall Santa.
Same principle.
@@Sora_SlimeCatAren't the average "flesh streamers" doing the whole G-string thing with the bath tube streams?
"You can be showing so much skin! Go to the _showing skin_ section for that"
Yep - it's quite literally just managing expectations, which you do a lot of in the corporate world
That occurred at a taco place I and a friend were eating at once. It's Florida, granted, but in ~15 years I only ever saw that once. Seeing someone enter with only three (possibly two, she may have been wearing the thinnest flip-flops to avoid the "No Shoes, No Service") pieces of clothing. Halfway through a soft taco I did not expect just tanned skin with a bit of orange fabric to pass our table. Most I saw while living in Florida had beach wraps. I'm going to leave Santa out of it, he needs to get a margarita refill.
I honestly wouldn't be too surprised if a (small) part of it is the fact that when you're just using your vtuber model you're in full control of what happens on screen, versus being in VR Chat where you can't always control what happens (I'm assuming). Kinda like Just Chatting vs IRL. Can't always control everything that'll be on screen at all times
The best part is that none of this clarifies anything at all, the policy will continue to be unevenly enforced, and Twitch will continue never telling any streamer why they were banned or giving them a single scrap of information they could ever conceivably use to actually correct the issue, while also banning them *while they're offline*.
The excuse that "people will push the rules" doesn't really hold water, either. Every rule will have wiggle-room. SA solved this problem almost completely by saying "Here are the specific rules, if you're obviously pushing it then we're going to ban you for being a moron, so just follow them. We're going to tell you *precisely* what you did to get a ban, because that way not only does everyone know, *we'll* know what to ban you for when you start pushing it again".
@@RvLeshraci like this way of enforcing rules, and it's funny since discord servers have been doing this since forever. "dont do this thing, and i dont try to find a loophole, we will still ban you". But perhaps there are cons im not seeing here
@@immortal_shrooms6757 The only real "con" is that you can have a power-tripping moderator. With SA, you simply paid $5 to get unbanned. (This, surprisingly, wasn't abused by the site, *and* you could also be permanently banned for something particularly heinous.) For Twitch, it would need to be something else, like appeals going to another moderator, or even better -- put that Twitch Ambassador program to good use, and make them the equivalent of the IRS's Taxpayer Advocate's office - non-employees who can review-and-advise on moderation appeals.
Obviously that has limits (you don't want to have volunteers reviewing, say, on-stream assault or something), but even in those cases it would be helpful to have points of contact where the moderator is forced to explain their decision to and how the rules were applied.
There's a lot of talk about legal liability around this, but there is no legal liability involved here. People wield the phrase like a cudgel in defense of Twitch moderation policies, and none of the people who do can define what the actual "liability" they claim is involved actually is.
yep, dan's CEO-ese on point here.
@ yea i agree, forcing mods to explain at least can provide people with the opportunity to figure out what the rules actually imply
The whole discussion is bad framing, like so many vtubers are actively asking twitch how to be compliant, many get no responses so they have to decide based on what's allowed on platform, and then catching bans for things that are way less bad then what goes on daily in irl streams.
Yeaaah, sorry but hes talking out his rump and we all know it. When enforcement matches what hes say then ill change my mind, but moderation on twitch has led to so many people getting bans even when their models don't break their rules. Takes seconds to find an irl streamer who completely throws his arguments out the window. He's serving us one big nothing-burger of an answer. You can see it in his face that he's not being truthful..
Really glad with how open and transparent Dan is about all of this. I think him getting a VTuber model and actually learning about being a VTuber really helped with him understanding this stuff.
Dude is way more chill than most CEO's would be.
Ehhh there’s still a pretty obvious double standard especially to irl streamers but at this point it’s more a “they’re not enforcing clear rules on certain streamers” rather than the former it just being rigged against vtubers entirely
@@megarotom1590 Yeah, if things like what happened to Motherv3 didn't happen, I would be more open minded about this, but the fact that things like that are still happening to vtubers (and the Motherv3 thing wasn't even related to outfits or whatnot)...
While their is still a double standard, it’s good that he’s willing to discuss this and be very transparent with people in the vtuber space. Hopefully that way twitch will eventually change their rules, it’s good that twitch don’t just stonewall them and ignore their point of view.
@@mattgoodwin9106 how is someone being willing to lie a good thing?
@@mattgoodwin9106 at least at this point it’s less a “they’re attacking vtubers” and more a “they just don’t enforce the rules on certain irl streamers”
I had to laugh when he said the rules.Apply to everybody because they clearly Don't
My hunch is that Dan genuinely believes what he's saying. Some bosses lock themselves in the office all day, imagine how their businesses are run, and just believe that things work the way they imagine. If the guy isn't watching Things Vtubers Say regularly like we do, maybe he just doesn't believe that these problems are real. He certainly implied a dismissive attitude when he said that often streamers will complain they don't know why they were banned when they actually know.
Geega does really well in these conversations. I hope she gets into Vshojo, she deserves it.
Also twitch sure held by their stance, which is a good stance if it worked. Seeing vtubers be banned for 7+ days for showing a bikini in the same category as people with see through chairs with vagina cams and flesh colored pasties with an inflatable pool in the corner and not get banned is still more common than any kind of parity that should be in place if they are genuinely following their own guidelines like they are saying they are.
Geega has been in Vshojo for a long time now.....
@@ivorytemplar_ It is a running/inside joke that Geega is not in VShojo, or that she is the newest member of VShojo.
@@ivorytemplar_ it's an AI response, i've seen one for haruka and even one saying they hope zen gets in. VERY weird
@@ivorytemplar_It’s a running joke among her fanbase
What I don't understand is why not lean full in on the label system over bottle necking to misleading categories and age gate accounts until money is spent on it. I'm not advocating for full on corn of course, just have these suggestive content labels hide streamers from unregistered users and accounts that have not spent money on the platform. That way if an account is actively using money on the platform for donations, bits, etc. you know with almost absolute certainty this account does not belong to a minor (In the case that it actually does, that comes down to an internal user error such as, how was the kid able to use the money, where are the parents, etc. At that point it is a zero liability thing on twitch's end and 1000% a fault on the user). I know that would drastically impact discoverability for content creators, but that would be about the best way I think to handle that blurred lined without getting false positive bans, actual violators skirting under the radar, or moderator incompetence/favoritism.
You literally have the ability to label your stream as containing sexual content wtf are they talking about "expectations"?
i know this might come off as bad but they need to be a bit more strict against real life people with a lot of the front page stuff that gets out there letting people get away with literally being nude and just not putting themself in frame fully.
problem with a group of vtubers that assess what is allowed is if it get's clicky then we have the hoyoverse atsu dish and tuonto issue all over again of someone abusing their power just because they dont fuck with a person
Good video.
Communicating the rules in a deliberately vague way so people can't exploit the letter of the law is wild, because this also means Twitch staff cannot be held responsible for unfair bans. Mistakes will be made, assuming if we are charitable and consider all such instances simple mistakes. Subsequently, the worst moderators/administrators will remain, and Twitch's reputation will remain in the gutter. They need to build trust.
Of course, there'll always be an element of subjectivity to rules, but if you're starting out by obfuscating... there's no way this works. Case in point: if the CEO doesn't know the nuances of their policy for attire, how can a regular streamer be expected to know?
That said, it was informative. Thanks.
What I wish is they would give an image of how much has to be covered. Not words but an image so 2D artists and 3D texturers knowhow much of the model has to be covered. Then use that image as a layer of the base model so everything needed to be covered is covered. It will help a lot and if it comes from Twitch it will be what it is instead of guesses from artists about how much is enough compared to what the client (VTuber) is requesting them to draw.
Yeah knowing exactly how much has to be covered will make it so some will only cover that much and no more but it will make it so they will cover that much. Most are most likely already covering more than needed to which they might cover less if they know how little they can get away with.
They literally adressed this in the video. They don't want super strict lines because then people will try to skirt and exploit those lines to the extreme. Don't expose your hips and titties should be pretty simple to understand imo.
@lunarath1 i get that but also there's a lot of cases with vengeful moderators going "oh I see half an inch of skin BANNED!!!!!" 💀😭
@@lunarath1 If they specify what is ok, then if people cover just enough, then that should be fine, if the bare minimum covering is not actually enough, then make a better guideline of what is. If they try to skirt it with less, then they are wearing less, which is then not allowed.
Like they even brought up, a model can take anywhere from a couple months to a year+ to make, and it generally costs several hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.
Unlike with an IRL streamer who can just go buy a new top for 30USD the same day.
Its precicely BECAUSE vtuber models require way more time and money investment that they need to have clear lines on exactly what needs to be covered. "Dont expose your hips" ok, how much of the hip? the hip is not just a small area, there are "acceptable" levels of hip showing and then theres not.
As an example, are low rise jeans ok to wear? They do show some upper hip, but no IRL streamer has been banned for it, so if a VTuber has a model which shows that area of their hips but covers the rest they should be fine right? But thats still showing SOME hip, and with the rules as they are, they might get hit for that.
@@Hexaile I don't understand why you would spend so much money and time on a model that clearly tries to skirt the lines of what's acceptable. Just put clothes on your model. There are so many better ways to make your model sexy than to be half naked.
Low rise jeans, and even short shorts are clearly okay.
Great so zero progress has been made because this isn’t a policy issue but a moderation issue. Make more clear moderation policies and hire better workers. This isn’t some game you’re giving people the power to take away other people’s careers.
I mean if Twitch defines the "Purple" and the "Violet" in the rules. vtubers would not have to IMPLICITLY DEDUCT IT and be sure that they respected the rules as STATED as they could compare their creation to the target values required of them. This is just a way too keep both ways regardless as they never set their boundaries in writing so it keeps being a shroudinger problem still, and it only opens itself to interpretation from Twitch's side leaving vtubers with no defense on how they upheld the rules, since it remains implicit by DESIGN as no one can really uphold the rules correctly without over-correction. I should add that if people are exploiting the rules so much is because the rules are not being well written in the first place ... Setting up rules like that only keeps making Twitch a TIME and MONEY sink for vtubers and creators on their platform with their rule design.
GEEGA handling this information so professionally is doing so much more for this issue than anything else ever has
Funny thing with the subjectivity of corn. UK law defines corn as: "You know it when you see it."
They should separate Twitch into two sections, one for adults and one for minors. And the adult section should have total freedom of expression. But of course, that's too much to ask in 2025.
adults should be treated like children!!!
8:42 HOLY I was not expecting that comparison
That was a perfect analogy, she knows her stuff
@chriall Yes, it was perfect but it so out of left field XD
Am much as I admire Dan for not shying from addressing the platforms issues, it doesn't explain why vtubers get punished more for supposedly breaking ToS when irl streamers can get away with much worse and only get so much as a slap on the wrist. Twitchs rules aren't equally enforced and it’s way too lenient towards irl content for whatever reason
As kind as Geega is when talking to Dan about this, I think that it's less about what the policy is and more about the enforcement mechanisms. Vtubers are often just banned without an explanation as to what happened and why - and more importantly, they have NO WAY to contact an actual human being. It's very common knowledge that Twitch "support" is 99.5% AI/canned responses, and that getting ahold of an actual person for answers is near impossible unless you are a gigantic creator - and even then it usually doesn't happen until that creator blows up Twitch's Twitter page with spam.
Twitch needs more human manual reviewers who are available to make/reverse decisions on the spot to counteract things like mass-reporting, hate raids, incorrect enforcement, etc. If Twitch cannot afford enough staff to perform essential duties, they need to be having longer talks about why so much of their budget is being spent on other things than staffing.
What they spoke about in this interview all seemed fine and well but I believe the main issue people have, besides the ambiguity and interpretation of Twitch's TOS that can lead to issues (which are related to the point I wanna make) is that Twitch moderators seem to have their own ideas and interpretations of the TOS, or some may even have a bias towards or against certain creators, and what ends up happening is that this reflects heavily upon Twitch and leads to many people saying they hate Vtubers and the like.
So they can definitely talk about how they like Vtubers, how they want them on the platform, but the moment their employees do not relfect that sentiment it becomes an issue to them and it's an issue that needs to be adressed. Find out who is moderating Vtubers and deal with them swiftly (remember how Shondo was banned but luckily the outrage was so massive she got unbanned but their apology and reasoning felt extremely backhanded) or have a specific group of moderators who do know Vtubers and understand that side of content creation and let them be the moderators as to avoid these types of issues.
There needs to be proper tracking and moderation of these things, proper and fair enforcement of the rules, and these 2 higher ups must have a heavier hand on things in order to keep things fair. Until then it'll always feel extremely unfair and biased, and their words will just feel empty.
The Twitch admin and moderation team are insane vtuber haters. They apply x10 the length of suspensions for lesser offenses to them than to fleshtubers.
Avoiding clearly defined rules because of subjective error makes no sense to me. Not precisely defining the rules just makes the margin of subjectivity even larger. Also the fact that people will push things to the limit doesnt matter if you put the limit where it truly needs to be. The concern over subjective error also makes even less sense for vtuber models which will have attire that can be directly and absolutely measured in pixels.
Hell even the color analogy is bad, there's a thing called a colorimeter and it lets you precisely measure how purple your object is for quality assurance purposes.
according to Dan's logic,
if I set my stream to Minecraft on monday
and on tuesday forget to set it and play something relatively suggestive (but still allowed on twitch) - I am now in hot water because a wrong audience might click my stream
THAT would be bullshit. it implies you know for every game what kind of audience will come and check
Where does it even say the game / category MUST MATCH the content?
i agree with what theyre saying but thats not how they end up moderating at all. my issue isnt how they moderate vtubers, but how they DO NOT moderate regular human streamers. asmongold has said hate speech that i wouldnt even dare cite in a youtube comment but they still allow him to have a platform on their website.
There’s no justification for having different guidelines for attire so long as the Pools/Hot tubs/ Beaches category exists.
I really don't understand using the game being played as the means of being the defacto content rating of the stream itself. There are two sources of content being streamed, the game being played and the streamer playing it. Assuming the game being played is a valid way of judging the stream as a whole is just disregarding the role of the streamer entirely. And that doesn't just apply to vtubers, it's everyone. To me it seems like there should be a self imposed age gate of some sort for the streams as a whole that the streamers can toggle on. That is a filter based on the type of content and how they want to stream. Then only serve those streams to logged in users over the age required that have opted in to see that content.
Using the game being played or the requirement to be sitting in a hot tub as the means of moderation is just... Bizarre and a nonsensical approach to making an existing category system function as a filtering mechanism for content rating that it wasn't built for and isn't suitable for
My best guess is that the advertisers focus on things in that way (advertising on a category basis rather than the category + the streamer), thus forcing Twitch to do adapt to that? But I have no specific evidence of that, so again, it's a guess. If advertisers choose which channel to put ads on based on their current categories and the labels directly attached to those categories like I suspect, then this would be the most likely answer. I think change is possible if that's the case but it's probably on Twitch to re-systemize things entirely which advertisers likely wouldn't want to adapt to later
I think the focus on Vtubers being targeted and "the rules apply to everyone" discussion just muddies the conversation because that really isn't the issue. The rules are not the issue, who they apply too isn't the issue. The problem is the inconsistency with how rules are enforced. For example the rules state that nudity in games is fine as long as that isn't the main focus and yet there is a whole genre of irl streamer category where sexualizing themselves is the whole point (hot tubs). Having your hips showing is a ban, but only sometimes it's very inconsistent, and yet having a stream with a huge amount of chest showing where that is the main focus of the stream isn't. Also If a vtuber has hips showing but that isn't the main focus, how is that different than playing a game with nudity where that isn't the main focus, is full on nudity not way more explicit even if that isn't the main focus?
That is why people are upset and why this discussion needs to happen, NOT Vtuber are being targeted, because I really don't believe they are being targeted because they are vtubers, but because the rules and enforcement of them are unclear and inconsistent. Vtubers catching strays is just an unfortunate side effect of that I think.
I think the reason why vtubers feel like they are targeted more is simply ebacsue a lot of guidelines that may weight on attire or physical appearance simply can't be fixed by them without investing loads of time and money, so like imagine what Geega said at the start, vtubers taking months to a couple years making a model to stream, imagin it is now finally ready for use, but now that you spent all you money and waited a ton of time to get the model, you find out that clothing rules changed and are now stricter, so now they need to spend more money and time changing their top, or jacket or skirt, or even the whole outfit. It's time consuming, and expensive, and there's no way for them to correct an attire issue in a timely manner, besides getting a Free to Use placeholder model, and really doesn't help we don't have the most clarity for outfits, by hips you mean up to the belly button? Down to the hip bone? And if you get it wrong and get suspended/banned, welp, time to invest more money and time to fix it
What a cop out of an answer. Double standards. just use mature filter and call it a day? This level of policing is silly.
Clancy was explaining how the rules are supposed to work and the reasoning behind them. But the actual enforcement of those rules are almost entirely up to the moderators. I'm not saying the CEO is a saint, I'm just trying to keep people from jumping to conclusions.
Yeah, I feel like these folks have a pretty good idea of how they want things to be, but that's not making it to "ground-level" where moderation decisions actually happen. And that once those moderation decisions *have* happened, both the feedback on why an action has been taken, and the ability to dispute the decision, often aren't good enough to make effective changes on both sides.
@earincopper9975 Fun fact! Looking at his past endeavors, Mr. Clancy has never held a front-facing, ground level, interactive position post-NASA. He's been in charge of some, but appears to never have gone into those trenches himself. Maybe at Nextdoor? Nope, not then either. Even then, he should be aware of the "middle management" problem that crops up so frequently. I wouldn't imagine that as a big surprise to Mr. Clancy. Even though the top management has a look of wonder and amazement that something could possibly going on that they weren't aware of. But have you seen these KPIs?!
Less talk, more action.
The biggest complaint currently is undeserved bans. Less action would be a step in the right direction.
Very well spoken and productive by all parties. I appreciate the clarity and insight Geega and the hosts demonstrated, since its apparent many in the space had issues with odd enforcement practices in the past
The only issue is, they didn't actually address enforcement practices really at all. It just really boiled down to that there are different standards and they aren't changing it. They totally stepped around the issue of some people getting a slap on the wrist while vtubers were getting supermax with bubba.
I think a major part of this is, with stuff like bigotry, decent people are gonna want to avoid it. Yes you can have people getting weird about what that means, trying to bash Autistics that still say they have Asperger's, but that's really not what website content moderation is going after. But with showing skin or being adult, a lot of people genuinely do not think it should be restricted, and there is no malice in that desire. I'm one of those, even if I find some of the adult stuff gratuitous, I'm also very in favor of individual agency and sex positivity. Thing is, these guidelines exist almost entirely because of advertisers, it's always about money. For a lot of people, hearing "advertisers don't like it" isn't compelling and we don't want to have to comply with them. The worst of this is stuff like, adult content creators trying desperately to get any financial services in the USA.
People try to push the limit because we don't think the limit should exist. The best way around that isn't just clarity of rules, I think it's important to have justifications and reasons. There really is no clear reason why you can't show certain parts of the body, even in real life it's a very arbitrary and culturally relative thing. Women's chests is a big one, the fact that those are adult but men's chests aren't is fairly arbitrary. But, we still have to comply. When you have a medium about self expression like VTubing, it's tempting to want to ignore those restrictions imposed on you in real life. So, let us know what about it these advertisers don't like, why they care. Even if we don't agree, it's just nice to understand why the paradigm exists how it does. I'm gonna show my Info Systems major side here (appropriately for this channel) and say, this is why user stories have 3 parts. Who is the user group, what do they want, why do they want it?
So what. Sifting through a category is the viewers responsibility not the streamers. You can’t sub categorize everything there is nothing that works like that. Everything can be broken down infinitely into different sub categories. Stop worrying about that and don’t change it and don’t enforce stupid policies to keep your categories they way you like them. It either is or isn’t in that category, period.
If Geega was half as pissed off about the bullshit these two were peddling as I was watching this, I must commend her extraordinary self control. I don't think I could've contained myself from telling Clancy and Kish how totally full of crap they are.
Moderation decisions should not be made in private if your company is public. If you cannot explain why you make a moderation decision properly, don't make it. Transparancy would solve a lot of the complaints.
“Don’t tell me that you’re Sailor Moon when you’re Gushing Over Magical Girls” I don't even know what that means. Honestly that remark came across as very unprofessional. That vtuber may have spent 3000 to 10000 USD and put a lot of time effort and thought into their character to then have this clueless person make this comment. If anything I think it might expose the bias that Mary Kish has towards vtubers.
Gishing over Magical Girls is an anime that uses the trappings of a Magical Girl show, but is basically just porn.
@@quartz97 That's a disingenuous description for the anime.
Simply put and to my understanding, Gushing over Magical Girls _(MahoAko)_ involves a surprise(?)-villain protagonist literally __ due to her strong admiration for them. The anime tackles heavy psychological weight on one's kinks and why people develop fetishes for them.
As for the meaning of her...technically witty remark as it is, she makes it sound like _(all)_ vtubers become like or declare themselves as Sailor Moon _(a magical girl)_ when they likely have their motive of gaining attention of...interested viewers; or they themselves gushing over it with their viewers...or some more variants of interpretation for this statement.
@@LloydDunamisI want to thank you for that explanation. I was interpreting that phrase completely differently.
The thing about vrchat is that you can control the maturity level of the content you present of yourself. I think the clothing rules should apply the same.
8:43 I like this comparison 👏
We trust in geegus 🙏
VRChat, while technically classified as a standalone game, is better classified as a software environment that enables both socializing in various worlds and also playing game worlds, music worlds, etc. The content, aside from the handful of baseline worlds and avatars, is ENTIRELY user-generated.
One of the called out differences is "Vtubers are able to do things and play games that VRChatters can't. Vtubers can play Minecraft." It is possible to import the audiovisual elements of any application (and thus game) into VRChat via stuff like OVR Toolkit, which means the exact same setup to play a game could be done both in VRChat and also programs like VNyan that also allow importing a 3d world and tracking a 3d avatar.
Ultimately the starting point (obviously tweaking will be needed, there's no way anyone can get this right the first time and it'll need work over time anyway) I would go for is "Any virtual avatar that the broadcaster (and guests on the broadcaster's stream) is puppetting to represent themselves, that is not a player character asset created by the game's developers, is subject to the same Attire rules as if they were a real life human."
The difference in application of attire rules for VRC avatars compared to general Vtubers is nothing compared to the difference in how the attire rules have been "enforced" more stringently for Vtubers versus IRL streamers even when IRL streamers have had more revealing clothing.
It would be AMAZING if, when they issued a warning or ban, they gave a time frame of the broadcast where the offense happened and what the offense actually was in some sort of detail. Alas, they don't want to get too specific because they know people will try to push against the boundary even more if given more details. But it'd be nice if they were consistent between IRL streamers and Vtubers.
Heck, given the typical social nature of VRChat, and the expectation to see many different people/avatars, ultimately it might end up being prudent to split VRC into multiple categories: One that's basically VRC/Virtual Hot Tubs and Pools where the attire policy is relaxed as per the normal Hot Tubs category, then two other categories that amount to VRC "IRL / socializing" and VRC Gaming.
Okay, at least leadership has directly acknowledged the problem.
Now comes implementing changes and reinforcing them. So long as Twitch utilizes the same standards and punishments to the same weight of violations between two streamers, I give my approval.
It's good that Dan acknowledged it, the fact that he himself wanted to talk about this topic is good. However, meaningless if no actions are taken. I think most people will agree what we need is less about clarification, and more about actual solutions, changes and moderation standards
What im seeing is that the intentions are understandable but the execution is very lackluster
One problem ambassadors aren't trained in what to do
A more pertinent question I feel would be: What happened to the Twitch Safety Advisory Council? Are there 15 Twitch Ambassadors currently, and besides the various perks being an Ambassador nets you, do they play any role at all in Twitch's overall direction? Not the Twitch community building or growing, but more concrete and measurable actions Twitch may be considering. Input into what new feature to try out and give feedback (Regardless of any actual impact the feedback might have.) Before the new feature becomes quietly deprecated after a year or so.
"Hold us accountable" is a different conversation and not germane at this time.
@felisconcolori That to, I had thoughts of streaming at until I seen this off balance enforcement in ruling.
if everything is tag oriented wouldn't make more snice to bring a model tag too? say as if you have one more on the lewd end of things underage views can't see the streams.
Edit: Let alone tub streamers shouldn't be at the front page now that I think about wasn't twitch a gaming stream site?
I my vtuber cant wear what amoranth wears on a regular basis or whoever the line pusher is and get the same exact ban. Im gonna be upset regardless.
if you have specific rules you that are well written you don't have the ability to circumvent the rules. Just make them fool proof and have links to examples for the actual fools that are trying to understand the intent of the rule.
“Don’t tell me that you’re Sailor Moon when you’re Gushing Over Magical Girls” gets right to the heart of Twitch’s dilemma
I don't even know what that means. Honestly that remark came across as very unprofessional. That vtuber may have spent 3000 to 10000 USD and put a lot of time effort and thought into their character to then have this clueless person make this comment. If anything I think it might expose the bias that Mary Kish has towards vtubers.
@ Gushing Over Magical Girls is a magical girl anime like sailor moon… and it is also very thinly veiled BDSM porn that’s not actual porn because of strategically placed threads of cloth
So in this case, what I’m saying is that Twitch’s dilemma is trying to adjudicate people accidentally nudging up against the acceptability line, and people deliberately pushing against it
@@esmith8818 "because of strategically placed threads of cloth" Tell me you haven't seen Gushing Over Magical Girls without telling me you haven't seen Gushing Over Magical Girls...
Gushing Over Magical Girls just shows nudity outright.
Geega was the right Pokemon matchup for this gym battle.
they just wait time and dont address anything with their word salad, classic.
But vrchat let’s you change your model on a dime
I see what Dan means and I agree with his points. I don't have a problem with the TOS getting enforced as it does help establishing where the lines are - my , and I think a lot of people's problem are that it's not enforced the same way with real life people streaming, therefore creating unfair treatment.
Sounds like an excuse, add a rating system on twitch. Pure laziness
the way moderation is enforced is heavily dependent on the situation and that's the biggest issue; some chick literally had sex on stream and only got a 7 day ban; it was eventually a permanent suspension, but the fact that wasn't instantly a perma meanwhile stuff like Shondo discussing mental struggles immediately got her a month ban, is a HUGELY unfair enforcement
maybe twitch is TRYING to enforce their rules properly, but at the very least the moderator "executioners" swinging the ban hammers are doing an unacceptable job, that more often than not, is heavily biased against vtubers, and heavily biased towards the pseudo-camgirls on twitch who are constantly pushing the limits of TOS