this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2023
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Twitch Updated their Sexual Content Policy:

  • Changes: Certain content now allowed with labels
  • Artistic Nudity: Permitted under Sexual Themes Label
  • Game Nudity: Contextual; labels necessary
  • Body Painting: Acceptable with appropriate label
  • Mature Games: Label generally covers content
  • Stream Visibility: Impacted by content labels
  • Twerking, grinding and pole dancing are now allowed without a label.

Via https://twitter.com/Dexerto/status/1735024184114245689

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 11 months ago (6 children)

Nudity is not strictly porn, but not all nudity is strictly harmless. Platforms like these are for clickbait and attention whoring, and there's no better way to get attention on the internet than sexual content (especially on a website mainly used by kids/teens).

And it's basically universally accepted that porn is harmful to children. We all watched some of it when we were young, but most people had circumstances that limited their exposure or access to it. A modern mainstream addiction machine like Twitch serving softcore porn to children under the guise of "artistic nudity" is going to fuck people up. That's not even mentioning the "cam whore" aspect to it, which does frequently fuck up the lives of fully grown adults.

What sites are parents supposed to allow their kids to access if rules like this start slipping in? Short of invasive AI scanning, it's not possible to monitor every single thing your child watches on a site at all times.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

I am always so interested by these types of comments. Lots of words, no substance. HOW will this cause harm? Is it the nudity? Is it the platform specifically? Is Twitch now more harmfully addicting due to there now being nudity? Was access to Twitch not harmful, or was harmful, before? In excess? In moderation?

Give us something if you're going to be throwing verbal hands. I neither agree nor disagree with this decision by Twitch, mostly because I honestly dgaf and strongly feel parents have a responsibility to learn how to limit access if it is needed. Having worked with parents a LOT, many of them are happy to shove responsibility for their children onto others, while simultaneously making outrageous demands and incredible accusations. I don't see why this situation should be any different.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

i think the problem a lot of people (myself included) have specifically with nudity on twitch is with the streamers whose streams are basically just porn. now there's nothing inherently wrong with porn, nudity, or sex work on the internet or in real life, but the issue comes in when you put people who are essentially sex workers on the same video game streaming site many young people visit for non-sexual content. now porn is available and popular on their favorite game streaming site, and it is being forcibly recommended to users who have never browsed that category of content on twitch before.

pretty much all i watch on twitch is super mario 64 speedruns, but 9/10 times when i log in my first recommended channel is a streamer with their tits out doing jumping jacks in a hot tub or something. i can only imagine this is happening to a large percentage of other users as well, including younger users who could be easily manipulated by an attractive and interactive woman online heavily incentivizing them to donate money.

it basically boils down to: i don't care that porn is on the site, but it should not be recommended to people who are not already browsing that content as that is not what i'm there to see.

edit - re-reading the changes, i'm hoping that the stream visibility and content label changes would fix this issue.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

This is essentially how I see it also.

The changes over the years allowing non-gaming content have allowed some really cool stuff to be showcased, but it also opened the floodgates for a lot of low effort softcore camgirls. I'm cool with sex workers making a living, but it would be nice to filter them out. Twitch has done a lot of work on discovery over the past year or two that's been positive at least even if the site is awful when not logged in.

I think the impact of these changes will really depend on the how Twitch chooses to allow monetization. Given the changes to aggressive ad-focused monetization recently I think that will be the big decider for what this means.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Unfiltered visibility of things is usually my problem and concern for my kids on video platforms.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Thanks for the measured response! I can agree with this. There is inherently nothing wrong with nudity or sex in general. In fact a healthy relationship with nudity and sex likely supports good development. I don't need to go much further to support this argument than to point out the myriads of people damaged from strict religious upbringings. That said, it does need to be filtered and enforced properly. Buried even where it had to be actually found, or specific settings activated that are otherwise automatically turned off.

I think if these and/or similar steps were done many of us wouldn't be bothered.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (1 children)

What universe do you live in where thats accepted knowledge? Cause its not the real one, thats a pretty frequently debated topic.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Here's a study showing the opposite, and linking to many others as well.

In other words, it's far from 'universally accepted'

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6088458/

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

From your own link:

However, pornography use was associated with increases in both self-esteem and symptoms of depression and anxiety, albeit only among adolescent women in one of the two panels. In addition, low subjective well-being was associated with a subsequent increase in pornography use, but only in female adolescents in one panel. This study’s results are not consistent with concerns about pornography use negatively contributing to male adolescents’ psychological well-being, but suggest potential antagonistic links between pornography use and specific facets of mental well-being in adolescent women. Such links should be considered tentative until verified with further research.

Seems that your own study you posted acknowledges that porn with adolescents, mainly with adolescent males, is generally accepted and understood with their negative links.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yes, I tried to link a reasonably balanced view of the issue. It'd be nice if you didn't cherry pick statements. The point being, different studies have shown different results, and there's no concrete conclusion to date. Hence your statement about 'universal acceptance' is extremely debatable.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

So you accuse someone of cherrypicking while admitting you cherrypicked yourself (which I should discard because your opinion of balanced is right and his of general consensus is wrong, obviously...)? Personally, I see a big difference between proper sexual education and children beginning to explore puberty with parental guidance and streamers drawing porn for money and exposure to sexuality becoming a circlejerk to personality cults.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Balanced in the sense that I acknowledged there's an ongoing debate and linked a source that covered both sides, unlike a certain someone who claimed 'universal acceptance' of their worldview. Hopefully you can see a difference there.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 11 months ago

You are asking me whether I assume universal and general are used interchangeably most of the time or whether I assume that when people say universal consensus they do so literally and without any degree of dissension, something which rarely occurs. At this point we might as well be talking about which dictionary definition of a word is the "real" definition. His wording could have been better to avoid criticism, sure.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The last sentence of your quote literally says that there is no actual conclusive data from this, and any links need further study to be considered real and actionable.

You didnt even cherry pick this correctly

[–] [email protected] -2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Conclusions

Despite common public concerns that surround adolescent use of sexual media [66], the results of this first longitudinal assessment of the relationship between pornography use and adolescents’ subjective well-being provide no evidence that pornography use contributes to decreased subjective well-being in adolescent men. We found, however, limited evidence of the contradictory contribution of pornography use to female adolescents’ dysregulated mood and self-evaluation. Future research in this area should use large-scale prospective designs, which would include different developmental stages, to clarify possible effects in adolescent women. Given the public concern surrounding pornography use among adolescents, the veracity of these findings will likely be challenged. Thus, replication of our findings with diverse adolescent samples from other cultural settings is highly warranted.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

This repeats the exact same point I pointed out. That they found nothing conclusive, only mildly suggestive data, and will need repeated deeper study to confirm if the data pointed towards an actual conclusion or if it was a flaw in the study.

I really wish they taught scientific reading in non-college school, you posted my own evidence for me as if it was a rebuttal

E: also? This study used regular porn, while twitch would have typically woman-led self-led content, which completely shifts the research. So even if this said what you think it says, thats still not conclusive for all porn. Just stereotypical male focused and male directed video porn.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 11 months ago

Peas to apples, that study only involves adolescents, and it doesn't clearly illustrate or partition according to the age groups. It also seems to merely itself to the self-assessment of those polled and particular concerns about body image and inadequacy.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

I would like to learn more on a sentence you casually dropped

it’s basically universally accepted that porn is harmful to children

It would be interesting to read some studies and what is the definition of “children”.

In other word I think that assertion is undebatable for a 6 year old… but what about a 14yo? And a 17yo?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

That's why I don't monitor it. If I don't trust my kids on a site, I ban it so they get no access to it whatsoever. If I trust them, I don't have any restrictions on the content they can access on it.

For example, I trust Netflix's kids mode, but my kids can easily switch to my profile and see stuff they shouldn't. I trust them to only watch on their profile, and if they violate that, they lose access to Netflix entirely. Adult content doesn't appear on their home page, and it doesn't even appear on my home page (as in, the trailers usually don't have the intense parts).

I feel like if I restrict it, they'll be more curious about what they're missing, whereas teaching them to avoid stuff in their own teaches discipline and builds trust

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

it's basically universally accepted that porn is harmful to children.

Source, please?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Here's a study showing the opposite, and linking to many others as well.

In other words, it's far from 'universally accepted'

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6088458/

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Again, from your own link:

However, pornography use was associated with increases in both self-esteem and symptoms of depression and anxiety, albeit only among adolescent women in one of the two panels. In addition, low subjective well-being was associated with a subsequent increase in pornography use, but only in female adolescents in one panel. This study’s results are not consistent with concerns about pornography use negatively contributing to male adolescents’ psychological well-being, but suggest potential antagonistic links between pornography use and specific facets of mental well-being in adolescent women. Such links should be considered tentative until verified with further research.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

Yes, I tried to link a reasonably balanced view of the issue. It’d be nice if you didn’t cherry pick statements. The point being, different studies have shown different results, and there’s no concrete conclusion to date. Hence your statement about ‘universal acceptance’ is extremely debatable.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

This study’s results are not consistent with concerns about pornography use negatively contributing to male adolescents’ psychological well-being

What do you think this means?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!

Every single time, anything and everything....

You must realise no one buys it, right? Like you know everyone sees straight through your pearl clutching?