First link: DMCA problems, this is super common but Twitch is reacting to a very poorly written law.
Second link: Someone got in trouble for saying "America Deserved 9/11" which is a bit beyond a controversial political opinion.
Third link: Person advocated that people start shooting protestors, a literal call for violence once again beyond a controversial political opinion.
Fourth Link: Played a game (not a movie) that included nudity. Twitch has pretty clear policy on that and while it wasn't intentional on the streamers part, not allowing nudity is a pretty standard thing.
None of your links back up the idea that Twitch is cracking down on free speech.
> Fourth Link: Played a game (not a movie) that included nudity. Twitch has pretty clear policy on that and while it wasn't intentional on the streamers part, not allowing nudity is a pretty standard thing.
From the link:
>> According to Twitch rules, nudity and sexual content are allowed if they are originally part of the game, but not if the game is modded to include sexually explicit material.
>> In this case, the original Blade Runner game has been modified to add some elements from Blade Runner 2049, including the famous hologram girl scene.
You could call that a "clear" policy, but it's also self-evidently insane. The problem isn't that there was nudity. The problem is that someone modified the game. Of course, that's also allowed.
So the problem is here you'll never be able to write the rule in a way that won't apply arbitrarily at least some of the time. Looking at that rule I'm guessing they wanted to disallow sex and nudity mods in games, which is pretty reasonable.
It's easy to say that Twitch should be more flexible with these things, distinguishing something like this example from a more pornographic mod, but putting more power in the hands of the individuals applying the rules will make things feel more arbitrary not less since different moderators will have different standards for when something goes too far. If you want there to be a clear rule so people know what they can or cannot do, then that means it's going to come off as overly ruthless in situations like this.
I think part of the problem is how inconsistent twitch is. eg some people have been banned for accidentally showing nudity in movies/games/websites. Whereas other people who stripped naked on twitch to advertise their OnlyFans account just get 72 hour suspensions
> Someone got in trouble for saying "America Deserved 9/11" which is a bit beyond a controversial political opinion.
Why do you say that? I would definitely file that under controversial political opinion. That opinion isn't calling for another one, or saying that the individuals killed deserved it.
Especially because he's saying it out of disappointment, not anger.
It's a difficult point, because it's very hard to say that without basically implying the people deserved to die. I disagree that it's not saying that.
"The perpetrators' motives were rational, based on America's policies and actions" is one thing (which I happen to agree with), but anytime you start indirectly justifying civilian massacres, it's a slippery slope. "America" isn't just the government but also the set of people living in the country.
Did Japan deserve the nuclear bombings, and did post-defeat Germany deserve ransacking and worse? On one hand, of course the leadership deserved severe reprisal, and their governments and forces did even worse things when taken in total, but if you're a person on the ground seeing civilians brutalized and killed, "desert" becomes a much more flawed notion.
An example for watchers of Attack on Titan, without spoiling anything: did [X] deserve [Y]?
So, I probably agree with that Twitch streamer's sentiment, but I disagree with the way they said it and I understand why Twitch suspended them.
I never said this is a free speech issue; Twitch is a private platform so they can do whatever they please. My concern is that the quality of the platform is going downhill because Twitch's response to everything is the ban button. For repeat offenders, I understand banning, but as far as I know, they don't even have a warning system in place. (Their ban policies are also wildly inconsistent when it comes to ban lengths).
In my view, this just leads to overall lower quality content on the platform. Creators can't risk or innovate because their entire livelihoods at are at the whim of a temperamental moderator.
I dunno, if someone is calling for their political enemies to be shot, I don’t think they deserve a warning. That is so clearly beyond the acceptable pale that one shouldn’t need a warning that such behavior is unacceptable. To pretend otherwise is to infantilise streamers and pretend that they’re utterly incapable of telling right from wrong.
None of your links back up the idea that Twitch is cracking down on free speech.