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Apparently Twitch has a growing pedo problem

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Sentenza

Member
Another shitstorm brewing for Twitch.
I'm learning just now that they apparently allow minors as young as 8-9 years old to stream, either by not putting severe restrictions in their terms of service or by not enforcing them properly.
As a direct consequence, a bunch of pedophiles are gathering around these children on a regular basis.
Bloomberg has a disturbing reportage on the topic, going as far as listing some fairly creepy episodes as examples:



Reddit summary of article:
"Every day — On Amazon's Twitch measurably hundreds of new preteens live-broadcast themselves. Every hour — networks of child predators meticulously identify, index, and follow them.

Through the website's live-chat feature, they push them towards broadcasted gestures, off-platform communication and disclosing/filming their home.
They manipulate, they threaten, they coerce, they blackmail broadcasting children as young as 8 years old.
Varying degrees of the above scenarios measurably take place each and every hour.

Unlike its competitors — YouTube-Live, TikTok-Live, Facebook-Gaming who've industry standard policy/systems to prevent this — Amazon's Twitch, in pursuit of maximizing platform growth, has opted to forgo these vital safety measure :

Employing a minimum follower/subscriber account to live-stream from (this is crucial) mobile devices, a policy specifically conceived to filter malicious entities and preteens going live on their phone.

Unlike YouTube, on Twitch anyone can create a brand new account (often completely skipping e-mail/phone verification) and start streaming immediately. Children do so hourly.

Further, Amazon's Twitch has a severely underdeveloped Trust & Safety department which has not scaled in proportion with the website's pandemic growth.— Through its triage system, (despite official proclamations) it demonstrably prioritizes mass reports, not individual ones; Not even scanning for urgent key-terms such as "preteen/child/grooming". Consequently, it is the overwhelming case for on-site reports indicating broadcasting preteens to insufficiently get addressed.

Thus, the grooming/predation does take place over days/weeks with no on-platform way of drawing attention to it."

An example among many:

Even in the many instances when Twitch has eliminated inappropriate content or suspended clearly underage users, it's easy enough to create a new account. When one viewer "dared" a child to pull down her pants during a livestream in late May, the child responded that she wouldn't do so because she had already had one of her three accounts suspended. The viewer, who followed primarily young girls on Twitch, replied in the chat: "u can always make a new account easy." Later in the broadcast, she pulled her shirt up.

Good luck defending this creepy shit, Bezos.
 

nocsi

Member
confused kumail nanjiani GIF by Silicon Valley

Initially I wondered why Twitch wouldn't just ban anyone under 18 years old - kids are too much liability. Then thinking further on it, the top youtubers are kids that produce minecraft content. The most addicting content for kids are created by kids. Most likely Twitch has been targeting advertising to kids too. Otherwise there's no reason to keep kids on a streaming platform unless you're going nefarious & making shitloads of money off them.
 

RiccochetJ

Gold Member
Man, twitch has had one hell of a week. I remember reading about Youtube having similar issues and how they're trying to crack down on that stuff too.
 

MarkMe2525

Gold Member
Not a good look. One thing I find myself confused about, it states that "they create a new account, often completely skipping email/phone verification". Is the ability to stream without verification a feature or a bug?
 
Remember when your parents used to tell you not to talk to strangers?

Now it's "here's a camera and an internet connection, go display yourself to the world!"

I know in 2022 we have established that small children can make life changing decisions before they've grown thier first pube. But still, seems like a little common sense would go a long way here.

Pedos will be pedos. Greedy corps will but greedy over everything. Maybe parents should do something about the things they can control...like thier children?
 

ARK1391

Member
Maybe if twitch banned hot tub streams that attract a lot of curios 13 year old boys and beta males that have never seen a vagina in their life in the first place we wouldn't have this issue. But hey...let's ban gambling instead of cam whores first. Cam whores obviously not an issue...
Twitch gets a nice 50/50 revenue split from those hot tub girls. They aren't going anywhere.

Same thing with the chick that got caught having sex on stream, only a 7 day ban because they know her sub count is going to sky rocket. Which is just free money for them.
 
Twitch gets a nice 50/50 revenue split from those hot tub girls. They aren't going anywhere.

Same thing with the chick that got caught having sex on stream, only a 7 day ban because they know her sub count is going to sky rocket. Which is just free money for them.
No shit captain obvious, that doesn't change the fact that that's part of the problem... lol
 

Sojiro

Member
Remember when your parents used to tell you not to talk to strangers?

Now it's "here's a camera and an internet connection, go display yourself to the world!"

I know in 2022 we have established that small children can make life changing decisions before they've grown thier first pube. But still, seems like a little common sense would go a long way here.

Pedos will be pedos. Greedy corps will but greedy over everything. Maybe parents should do something about the things they can control...like thier children?
Sadly, that is asking too much of a lot of parents, which is even worse in this day and age where kids get handed a phone at a younger and younger age.

Fucking hell, kids as young as 8 have been streaming on there? Insane, Twitch continues to have a shitty week lol, but this is something they need to called out on and improve.
 

night13x

Member
And this is part of the reason why this gen of kids and young adults are so fucked up. Twitch, resetera, Twitter, etc are all toxic with the goal of grooming a certain behavior.

Fuck Twitch/Amazon. If it was a person it should be a registered sex offender.
 
Maybe if twitch banned hot tub streams that attract a lot of curios 13 year old boys and beta males that have never seen a vagina in their life in the first place we wouldn't have this issue. But hey...let's ban gambling instead of cam whores first. Cam whores obviously not an issue...
Defending a pedo platform.

Gaf really does have a defense force for everything.
 

Thaedolus

Member
Ugh…real exciting raising kids in this day and age. I swear I’ll move us all off the grid before they’re old enough to get caught up in this shit
 
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