The new nudity content policy announced by Twitch recently has been revoked by the platform after facing severe backlash from the community. The guidelines that permitted “artistic nudity” on the platform were rolled out on December 13.
After the policy was announced, several people from the community expressed their concern about the censorship of the new policy. However, the policy remained in effect for merely two days before being rolled back.
Twitch revokes the nudity policy
Twitch CEO Dan Clancy announced that they were rolling back their latest policy. Clancy stated that the new s*xual content policy “went too far” and that the guidelines regarding artistic nudity will be rolled back on December 15 due to concerns.
“Upon reflection, we have decided that we went too far with this change. Digital depictions of nudity present a unique challenge–AI can be used to create realistic images, and it can be hard to distinguish between digital art and photography. So, effective today, we are rolling back the artistic nudity changes. Moving forward, depictions of real or fictional nudity won’t be allowed on Twitch, regardless of the medium,” he said.
“Upon reflection, we have decided that we went too far with this change”
Twitch is rolling back their recent ‘artistic nudity’ policy changes pic.twitter.com/6CFFkC8W1P
— Dexerto (@Dexerto) December 15, 2023
Twitch also released an official press release, wherein the CEO said that the rules may have been formulated without proper consideration. Therefore, they have decided to revoke all the changes concerning artistic nudity. This implies that both real and fictional depictions of any form of nudity will once again be punishable on Twitch.
Nevertheless, they mentioned that the mature-rated games policy remains unaffected. Thus this will allow streamers to play games depicting incidental s*xual content involving nudity. It should be noted that only the Artistic Nudity part of the new policy has been revoked, while content involving acts like pole dancing and erotic dances is still allowed on the site.
What is Twitch’s nudity policy?
Twitch announced its new nudity policy that stated that certain s*xual-related content that was previously prohibited would now be allowed on the condition that they are properly labeled. Twitch’s blog post announcing the policy read, “There is a thriving artist community on Twitch, and this policy was overly punitive and did not reflect the impact of the content.”
Twitch will now allow “Artistic Nudity” following the viral topless meta pic.twitter.com/AXw1Ltq8tM
— Dexerto (@Dexerto) December 13, 2023
However, it turned out to be highly controversial since it allowed fictionalized versions of nudity, including artistic depictions of both male and female genitalia and breasts. Eventually, the overall changes in the nudity content on Twitch forced many users to push the boundaries, as several individuals witnessed bans for going too far.
Naturally, the new content policy changes were faced with highly mixed reactions. Several users welcomed the policy others opposed it. It looks like the flak has finally forced the Amazon-owned platform to revoke the said policy.