During a livestream, Dan Clancy broke down the problem about "highly subjective" bans.
The CEO of Twitch Dan Clancy explained how some cases are “highly subjective”, leading to moderators that sometimes get bans wrong.
It’s not unusual that platforms like Twitch, Kick or YouTube are facing backlashes when it comes to the moderation of content.
While each platform has specific guidelines that have to be followed during streaming or in videos, there also have been drawn distinct lines regarding content involving violence or sexual misconduct.
Even though there is a huge crackdown on inappropriate content on Twitch, moderators are always challenged in this regard.
Subjectivity Plays a Major Role
During a stream on January 22, Twitch CEO Dan Clancy broke down why the moderation team sometimes bans content creators “falsely” and how in particular cases, “subjectivity” plays an important role to figure out what is allowed on Twitch and what is not.
Before diving deeper in the complexities of the matter, Clancy admitted: "you have a lot of people who get it wrong".
50 Shades of Purple
Explaining why the platform sometimes is inconsistent when banning creators, Clancy used a colorful analogy:
Let’s assume for a second purple is not allowed but violet is, [content creators] want to be as close to purple without being it… The difference between violet and purple is very small and especially when you start talking about sexual content and that sort of thing, it can be very subjective. You’re gonna have a lot of people who are going to call it purple and then you’re gonna have some purple stuff that the raters call violet because it is not clear.
However, Clancy went on elaborating that while this applies to certain instances, in "other areas, it’s not highly subjective".
What are your thoughts on the bans on platforms like Twitch? Do you think they are useful or should the platforms get rid of them?