Twitch Terminates All Members of Its Safety Advisory Council (cnbc.com) 39
According to CNBC, Twitch is expected to terminate all members of its Safety Advisory Council on Friday. "The council is a resource of nine industry experts, streamers and moderators who consulted on trust and safety issues related to children on Twitch, nudity, banned users and more," notes the report. From the report: The Amazon-owned game-streaming company formed its Safety Advisory Council in May 2020 to "enhance Twitch's approach to issues of trust and safety" on the platform and guide decisions, according to a company webpage. The council advised Twitch on "drafting new policies and policy updates," "developing products and features to improve safety and moderation" and "protecting the interests of marginalized groups," per the webpage.
For four years, the group advised the company on "hate raids" on marginalized groups and nudity policies, among other things. But in the afternoon of May 6, council members were called into a meeting after receiving an email that all existing contracts would conclude on May 31, 2024, and that they would not receive payment for the second half of 2024. The council was not made up of Twitch employees, but rather advisors, including Dr. Sameer Hinduja, co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center; Emma LlansÃ, director of the Center for Democracy and Technology's Free Expression Project; and Dr. T.L. Taylor, co-founder and director of AnyKey, which advocates for diversity and inclusion in gaming.
"Looking ahead, the Safety Advisory Council will primarily be made up of individuals who serve as Twitch Ambassadors," the email, viewed by CNBC, stated. In a formal notice in the same email, the company wrote, "Pursuant to section 5(a) of the SAC advisor Agreement, we are writing to provide you with notice of termination... This means that the second 2024 payment won't be issued." Twitch Ambassadors are users of the streaming platform "chosen specifically because of the positive impact they've contributed to the Twitch community," according to the company's website. Payment depended on the length of the contract, but council members were paid between $10,000 and $20,000 per 12-month period, according to a source familiar with the contracts.
For four years, the group advised the company on "hate raids" on marginalized groups and nudity policies, among other things. But in the afternoon of May 6, council members were called into a meeting after receiving an email that all existing contracts would conclude on May 31, 2024, and that they would not receive payment for the second half of 2024. The council was not made up of Twitch employees, but rather advisors, including Dr. Sameer Hinduja, co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center; Emma LlansÃ, director of the Center for Democracy and Technology's Free Expression Project; and Dr. T.L. Taylor, co-founder and director of AnyKey, which advocates for diversity and inclusion in gaming.
"Looking ahead, the Safety Advisory Council will primarily be made up of individuals who serve as Twitch Ambassadors," the email, viewed by CNBC, stated. In a formal notice in the same email, the company wrote, "Pursuant to section 5(a) of the SAC advisor Agreement, we are writing to provide you with notice of termination... This means that the second 2024 payment won't be issued." Twitch Ambassadors are users of the streaming platform "chosen specifically because of the positive impact they've contributed to the Twitch community," according to the company's website. Payment depended on the length of the contract, but council members were paid between $10,000 and $20,000 per 12-month period, according to a source familiar with the contracts.
Easy money, good while it lasted (Score:3)
So these folks got an average of $15k a year to tell the board and C levels to not allow porn, not to be assholes and not to let assholes on the platform.
Good deal.
Re:Easy money, good while it lasted (Score:5, Insightful)
to not allow porn
And yet you can log onto Twitch and find dozens of effectively softcore porn webcam shows happening on there. That's perfectly alright as far as they are concerned since people like Amouranth pull in huge viewers. That's A-OK by Twitch standards.
And it's not even that I'm against that, get your bag from those horny teenagers but jesus christ, Twitch may be the most inconsistent platform out there today in terms of how they moderate, it's clown shoes, it's like a multibillion site moderated by Reddit volunteers.
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Oh hey, I didn't say the C and board actually listened. We know that. There's a whole bunch of shitty things been going on there for years.
This group was just PR fluff so they could say they had a trust team and blah blah blah but I wouldn't have minded getting 15k to get ignored and have a few zoom calls every year; just saying it was a good deal while it lasted.
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For sure, I think the both of us are due 15k for our sage and wisley advice.
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but you think comfort is weak despite all the comforts you need around you at all times.
Can you elaborate on this and how it connects to Twitch whom my only accusation is that their moderation on language and content is wildly inconsistent and pretty well known to be a farce.
Seriously, I don't follow what you think I am aggrieved by here?
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AC must be drunk again. Or maybe that was AI generated. Either way it made no sense and related to nothing.
Since AI output tends to be in formally structured English so I'm voting for drunk.
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It's something of an impossible task. YouTube has the same issue. It's not PornHub, but also there are lots of "try on haul" type videos with partial nudity and the like. They often get it wrong too, sanctioning people with particular body types and the like.
I don't use Twitch, but YouTube has a kid friendly mode that is supposed to filter out that kind of thing. That seems to be the solution - as long as it is properly labelled, it's fine. The additional complication with Twitch is that it has donations bu
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Sure but there's a line between "getting it wrong" and "looking the other way because you don't want to deal with losing ad dollars on an adult restricted section on the site" which is really where the core of my issue is, they seem to want to have their cake and eat it too.
This is the same site that if a streamer was banned you could get banned for simply watching a video with that person in it, it's just a wild west of moderation policies.
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I've never really found Personal Digital Assistants to be worth it.
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Oh I was must have glazed over the 18+ adult category on Twitch for all this time.
Oh I didn't know I was talking to an illiterate person who can still operate the keyboard. Or are you just blind to adjectives? They mean nothing these days?
We get it, we all like porno, that's not what I'm talking about.
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> Or women wearing bikinis in public? probably porn in your eyes.
Is the string portion a piece of fishing line? Can I see the anal folds with enough clarity that I can identify the person solely based on their anus, like a "fingerprint"?
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Some of the people who joined it early certainly wanted to make a difference - I know CohhCarnage was one of the original members of the council and wound up quitting because of major amounts of drama on the council and Twitch basically ignoring the recommendations of the council.
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Long live the based.
Crackheads?
Safety (Score:2)
I've been on the Internet since dial-up. "Trust and safety" has literally nothing to do with trust and safety. They haven't made me or anyone else more safe.
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Yeah it's about trust and safety for the advertisers.
Lols (Score:2)
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It's not like they got enough money to do twitch specific research, they get a pittance, so they will provide a pittance worth of input completely divorced from the reality.
A couple twitch streamers are going to provide more valuable input.
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they had trans furries who bragged about banning people they didn't like until he got exposed and fired
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Diversity and inclusion in gaming :o (Score:1)
Do please "elucidate on who-or-what is stopping the ‘marginalized’ from participating in gaming?
Re:Diversity and inclusion in gaming :o (Score:4, Informative)
“AnyKey, which advocates for diversity and inclusion in gaming.”
Do please "elucidate on who-or-what is stopping the ‘marginalized’ from participating in gaming?
"hate raids", won't tell you where I found it as it would give away my unique edge.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Do please "elucidate on who-or-what is stopping the ‘marginalized’ from participating in gaming?
A lot of things. You can start with adolescent boys in male-dominated online games harassing women and shouting phrases like "make me a sammich". Basically, toxic exclusionary behaviors of other gamers. Which is a major problem.
Although I doubt that Anykey's advocacy pstowards Twitch can fix the problem. They can do something about Streamers and viewers harassing minority groups, But the to
Re: Diversity and inclusion in gaming :o (Score:4, Insightful)
How is this toxicity different to the one in real world? Adolescent boys, in this case, are equally likely to do things like that in the real world.
In my opinion, we're trying to build this perfect world, this utopia where everyone gets along and is nice to each other. But it is an utopia. The real world doesn't work like that. The real world is a brutal competition, full of testosterone, domination and fight for power, mean people and highly unpopular opinions. It's just the way it is and no politically-correct agenda is ever going to change it. Ever.
Just because someone chooses not to believe (or cover up) evil, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Re: Diversity and inclusion in gaming :o (Score:4, Insightful)
brutal competition, full of testosterone, estrogen, domination and fight for power, mean people and highly unpopular opinions
Lets not forget how vicious women can be.
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Thanks, missed that.
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How is this toxicity different to the one in real world? Adolescent boys, in this case, are equally likely to do things like that in the real world.
Well it's bad when they do it in real world too. Usually (hopefully) an adult like parent, guardian, older sibling or teacher would tell them to knock it the fuck off.
So in other words ... (Score:1)
Stories about Safety Advisory cuts (Score:2)
Can we get the Slashdot editors to add "prepares to launch whole company directly into the sun" to all of these headlines about companies getting rid of / reducing their safety advisors?