Twitch plans to crackdown on streamers misusing embeds

Shay Robson

Live-streaming titan Twitch has revealed new policy updates to crackdown on streamers misusing embeds.

Twitch is by far the world’s biggest live-streaming platform, boasting millions of daily active users. On October 20, thousands of fans and streamers headed to Las Vegas for TwitchCon, a three-day event for communities to come together.

Kicking off TwitchCon, the streaming service’s CEO Dan Clancy announced various changes were coming during the event’s opening ceremony.

One of the biggest announcements was that creators can now stream on multiple platforms. However, closing the ceremony, Clancy announced another huge change with a new policy update.

Twitch to crack down on embed misuse

At the end of TwitchCon’s opening ceremony, Dan Clancy explained that a small number of sites use embeds in a way that Twitch did not intend.

As a result, Twitch will soon prohibit autoplay on embedded streams that aren’t a main part of a site’s page.

“Twitch embeds are important for streamers and third-party websites to distribute Twitch content. However, we’ve seen a very small number of sites that use embeds in a way that was not intended,” Clancy revealed.

He continued: “We’re introducing a change to our embeds policy to prohibit autoplay when the Twitch stream is a substantive or a meaningful component of the page.”

“For sites that do not comply with this policy, we will disable autoplay for embeds,” Twitch’s CEO added, further stating: “The update rolls out November 1, and we will begin disabling autoplay on November 15.”

Ludwig was the first to bring the issue to light, where in 2021 he called out gaming website ‘Fextralife’ for “stealing views” by embedding their Twitch stream on their site, substantially increasing their viewer count.

Since then, several creators have spoken publicly about the issue, including the likes of Asmongold, Gothalion, and more.