Twitch starts banning users who share false information

Twitch changes its policy and announces that it will ban any user sharing false information. This is a reality as of today and it applies to people who persist in sharing such information.

Change in Twitch policy

Here’s what Twitch Explain regarding its new policy on banning in relation to spreading false information:

Although these individuals are not prevalent on Twitch, they can cause significant harm if we allow them to use our Service. That’s why today we’re updating our Spam, Email Scams, and Other Malicious Activity Policy to prevent users spreading harmful misinformation from using our service.

Our goal is to exclude individuals whose online presence is dedicated to spreading harmful misinformation from our services. We will not enforce this policy against users for one-time statements involving misinformation.

Twitch says it works with more than a dozen researchers and experts to understand how harmful misinformation spreads online, and also to effectively apply its approach to mitigating risk to its community.

Three characteristics are put forward regarding the commonalities of users with a problematic profile: continuous sharing, topics of harmful disinformation and widely discredited and shared in mass. “We selected these criteria because, when met, they represent the highest risk of harm, including incitement to abuse in real life”, says the online platform. It will ban users who match these three criteria.

Twitch does not specify if this change in policy has a connection with the ongoing war in Ukraine and the potential sharing of false information from certain sites. It could be a coincidence and the change was already scheduled to happen today.