Twitch announces new pools & beaches category after hot tub outrage

Twitch has finally revealed how it will be combating the hot tub meta with the announcement of a new category called “Pools, Hot Tubs and Beaches.”

On May 21, Twitch announced that the new category will be going live and that they had a lot of discussions eternally over how to deal with the hot tub controversy taking over the platform.

In a blog post, Twitch went over some of the criticisms hot tub streamers have been facing, such as their content being too sexual for the site or that they’re using Twitch as a way to promote more adult-themed content on other platforms.

“First and foremost, no one deserves to be harassed for the content they choose to stream, how they look, or who they are, and we will take action against anyone who perpetuates this kind of toxicity on our service,” the Amazon-owned company wrote.

“Second, while we have guidelines about sexually suggestive content, being found to be sexy by others is not against our rules, and Twitch will not take enforcement action against women, or anyone on our service, for their perceived attractiveness,” they added.

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Twitch also addressed streamers writing subscriber names on their bodies, saying that they allow it, but only if the streamer has “appropriate coverage.”

They also explained how their policies on what is explicitly sexually suggestive is not clear. “Sexual suggestiveness is a spectrum that involves some degree of personal interpretation of where the line falls,” they said.

Finally, they addressed Amouranth having advertising suspended on her channel, resulting in a loss of nearly $500K a year.

“On Twitch, brands get to decide where and when their ads appear. Today, they can target or avoid specific categories of content and flag channels that don’t meet their standards. This means that Twitch, in rare cases, will suspend advertising on a channel at the advertisers’ request,” they explained. “We recently suspended advertising on some channels that were flagged by the majority of our advertiser base and failed to notify them.”

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Furthermore, Twitch says they will work with streamers to better understand what “brand safe” means to advertisers and it was feedback from advertisers that resulted in the creation of the new category.