Super helpful idea, essential for keeping strong communities engaging with each other on twitch.

This is a fantastic idea that would improve the viewership experience and community feel of many streams.

I wish I could do this for my community. This is an idea that is also smart business, and that in and of itself should be reason to implement it. But the benefits it offers communities is such a good reason as well.

Agree 100%. Streamers should have some sort input on what types of ads are being shown on their stream, to fit with their stream content and brand, preferences, etc. This would probably make ads more palatable for viewers as well, since they'd be in line with the streamers they watch, possibly increasing viewership and revenue. This would be a win-win-win, for streamers, viewers and twitch.

Adding to this that for some channels which are not listed as mature shouldn't be shown content for ads such as 'Sex Therapy' where they ask about 'Sexual Identity and Pleasure' to people who could be under 18.

There needs to be some high level standard categories that can be filtered out much like regular television such as:
- Sex Themes
- Drug & Alcohol Themes
- Gambling
- Potentially violent\Disturbing content

Agreed! This is something that a lot of platforms fall flat on. If streamers can't pick what ads to run, then at least give viewers the option to pick brands and categories that interest them.

Yes

Other sites which serve ads for hosted content allow you to filter what is shown; for example if you don't want gambling ads, you can choose an otpion to opt out. I have often wished for a lack of gambling adverts on my channel.

It would be great to see twitch implement something similar!

Yes, yes and yes. There's certain stuff out there I REALLY don't need an ad reminding me exists, and I'm part of communities who think the same. Showing us such ads are at best ineffectual, and at worse actively harmful. My anxiety is bad enough without worrying about ads reminding me about stuff I don't want to think about.

Important and well reasoned idea that absolutely should be implemented.

Should've been the way things worked for years, tbh.

To be honest, it's a bit shameful that this wasn't implemented years ago.

This is a fantastic idea and one that I hope Twitch seriously considers implementing. Having complete control over your stream and making sure that it is a comfortable and safe space for everyone is incredibly important.

Great call! Thanks for speaking up!

Having the choice of saying, I don't want ads showing "x, y, and z" because my family is [family friendly, mature, LGBTQ+ friendly, other reasons here] is extremely important going forward, in my opinion.
I've heard streamers say they wish they had control to prevent ads for content targeted towards children on their MATURE streams, at the very least, and I can only imagine it expands out from there.
For example, if I'm playing Minecraft and my viewer base is primarily 13 year olds -- what's the point of showing them a car insurance ad? They don't care.

In this way more sponsors may actually BENEFIT from this tailoring, as the ads will be more important to the viewers in questions, and thus more successful.

Twitch may already attempt to target ads based on the streamer's category and tags, BUT the streamer ought to have the final say over what is okay to advertise with their content, because certain ads such as the Hogwarts one are a serious threat to the streamers' brand. There definitely ought to be overrides to block certain Ads, certain Advertisers, and certain ad categories.. Twitch could take some inspiration from Youtube here, because AdSense is serious about the safey of publishers' brands and provided Ad Blocking controls from the beginning.

As demonstrated in the original post above, the nature of certain ads are at best a nuisance in some communities, and due to factors Twitch probably didn't anticipate - showing the Hogwarts Legacy ad in particular is a complete contradiction to the kind of environment many channels are trying to create in their stream.

There are many other cases where Ads may be inappropriate from the content - Not compelling advertising, and offend the viewing experience.. another Example would be Loud ads playing on an ASMR stream.

I believe that Twitch already targets ads, on some level. I remember reading that, depending on the category you are streaming in, determined what pools of advertisers you could draw from.

Seeing as how Twitch is currently allowing (or in some cases, forcing) streamers to choose an advertising package for a month, it should not be too difficult to allow them to disallow certain advertisers and see how it impacts their revenue for the month.

Advertisers do not want to antagonize viewers.
This is good for everyone in the long run.
Advertisers will be more inclined to pay for ads if they know they are aiming at strategically targeting the intended audience, instead of being flung wherever to whoever, greatly reducing it's potential efficiency.

We all know twitch has many communities and some ads don't go well with certain communities. I believe there should be an opt out for certain ads they may conflict with someone's personal beliefs. That way they can feel safe that they are having ad's that directly go against their beliefs or life styles.