That didn’t take long: just two days after livestreaming giant Twitch announced a more permissive approach to certain sexual content, including “artistic nudity,” the company has slammed on the brakes.
In a blog post, Twitch CEO Dan Clancy announced an update to Wednesday’s update, particularly as it pertains to “fictionalised nudity,” noting “in making this update, we were trying to be responsive to these requests and allow the thriving artist community on Twitch to utilise the human form in their art.” Twitch was also trying to make its confusing Sexual Content Policy “easier to understand and enforce.”
Things didn’t quite work out that way. “Effective today, we are rolling back the artistic nudity changes,” Clancy announced. “Moving forward, depictions of real or fictional nudity won’t be allowed on Twitch, regardless of the medium.” The rest of the new Sexual Content Policy updates will remain in place.
The reason for this about-face can be chalked up to creators who were eager to push the new boundaries, and “created content that was in violation of our new policy,” Clancy said, noting Twitch has “worked quickly to remove that content and issue channel enforcements.” But the CEO also said that Twitch hadn’t considered just how realistic some “fictionalised nudity” can appear to be, especially considering AI imaging is now so sophisticated it can be difficult to discern what’s an actual photograph, and what’s been artificially generated. Citing both company and community concerns, Clancy said Twitch realised “we went too far with this change,” admitting that “digital depictions of nudity present a unique challenge.”