Don't allow nudity on Twitch
This is simply a copy paste of a reply from a recent reddit post on the subject. It's un edited for this purpose but it gets the point across. (Seeing as there are already 2 people asking for nudity, I figured the counter needed a spot)
I'm a Creative streamer. Long before Creative was a thing. I don't want nudity as part of broadcasts. Why? Several reasons. I run a business. Customers come to my channel to see my work, and one of the problems with nudity is that I don't want my business to be associated with it - Be it fine arts or hentai.
That brings up the second reason why I don't want nudity. What is art, and what is porn? There's no hard line, and just because something isn't porn or distasteful to you, doesn't mean it isn't for others. I believe that hentai for instance, is porn. But ask any person who draws hentai, and they'll say it isn't. That it's art (The two are not mutually exclusive).
third reason why I believe there shouldn't be nudity (Read: genitalia). It's an open category with many different streams and people. While GTA is a category with just that one game, and that one audience - It's an 18+ game, in an 18+ category. Creative isn't 18+, and it shouldn't be. There's no good way to allow children browsing Creative with, or without their parents, when there are people drawing dicks in there. (And setting channels to "mature" doesn't do jack)
Fourth reason, which is more of a counter argument to the idea that Twitch allows plenty nudity already: They don't. Plenty of games are banned from Twitch for the one reason that they display genitalia in one way or another - Recently Genital Jousting, which is a cartoony, and rather funny game in my opinion, about dick-jousting. There's a world of difference between a game character performing a lap-dance more or less clothed, and clearly displayed genitalia. (For the record, I don't think these games should be banned necessarily. They should simply have their own 18+ section - And one could possibly make an 18+ Creative section) An addition to this: Twitch does punish streamers who linger on sexual things in games. It can occur, but it canot be the focus of the broadcast.
Fifth reason. There's no real good way to moderate this. Even without nudity allowed we've seen countless examples of people crossing the line, be it artful drawing or straight up porn, that have allowed to stream for hours before being shut down. There's no incentive at Twitch to have an admin browsing Creative constantly, verifying that all broadcasts that display genitalia are not crossing whatever arbitrary line Twitch would have to set on "What's porn?"
Lastly. The idea that allowing nudity would help Creative grow has no real validity. What ever audience may be gained from it, would likely be trumped by the loss of younger audiences and sensitive people who choose to not browse the category, because it shows content they're not comfortable with. This doesn't need to be an ongoing discussion. Twitch is a private company, and they have a relatively strict policy on genitalia (Unlike Youtube that allows for videos of births and Genital Jousting for instance). Can nudity be allowed in a way that isn't detrimental? Possibly. Is it worth it to invest the resources so a handful of artist get to do that one painting they want to do? Probably not. There are so many things to do in art. If you can't do nudity on stream, it's not that big of a deal, in my honest opinion.
There are art streaming services that allow for nudity, so it's not like there's no place to broadcast this type of content. If anything, I think it's important that we retain a place where nudity isn't part of the Creative process, for the sake of the younger audience, and the more sensitive audience.
The amount of risky content on JTV back when I broadcasted on there was actually enough to make me not want to share my broadcast with people I knew - It had much looser content guidelines, and as a result, it ended up being something I for instance wouldn't want to show my parents, because you never knew when a cam girl was building up an audience she'd then move over to an actual camsite (They did this a lot), or just straight up porn streams. (Porn streams could run for hours as long as they didn't hit frontpage, so if viewer numbers got too high, the broadcaster would put on a weird clown video or something to make part of the audience leave - The lengths people would go just to broadcast porn was stupid - The issue was well known by one of the mods I spoke with at the time) - I don't want Twitch to risk this being anywhere near a possibility to become the norm on their site.
Allowing nudity could potentially make it difficult to secure licensing for shows like Bob Ross The Joy of Painting, and the various Food shows. There are likely going to be more of these things in the future, and if nudity has any detrimental effect on securing a deal for these marathons, it's doing much more harm than good.
TDG
shared this idea
8 comments
-
willingservantnz
commented
Twitch.tv does very little to prevent harm to users by allowing global access to adult (read sexually suggestive) content. They are not enforcing their own policies. https://www.twitch.tv/p/legal/
-
LordSognatore
commented
People are far to up tight, clothes shouldn't matter. Stop being so prude.
-
Hassan
commented
Twitch wont say no to the extra money, at least not until they get in trouble for it.
-
Karolina
commented
Pretty damn easy to make a Figure Painting section, which implies there will be nudity as that's generally part of figure painting/drawing, and put related broadcasts there and for any accounts that go in there to watch to be verified. If someone lies about their identity and age, well that is beyond everyone else's control.
If you're streaming other kind of nudity, you're *probably* painting porn/erotic art, and so you shouldn't be streaming so not very hard to distinguish content. In art, the question to answer is "what function does nudity serve?" If it's to arouse or really has no purpose to the greater concept of the image (ie. huge ridiculous cleavage), well then it probably shouldn't be streamed.
Considering the amount of swearing and adult conversation some streams have, I think Twitch needs a better solution for separating children from adults because that kind of stuff isn't appropriate for children either.
-
DigitalSeahorse
commented
This sounds like banning of educational diagrams in women's health books and TV programs. Do you want women to breast feed in a tiny bathroom stall too? Ludicrous!
-
FixTheBullshitAdVolume
commented
So by streaming on twitch and running your business... you are completely hopeless what YOU show on YOUR channel because some other people would like to stream and show a creative process that has since been hindered? How about you wake the fuck up and use your fucking brain the next time you try constructing an argument. If you can't run your business because someone else is advocating for something or doing something a little different, you should probably be mindlessly flipping burgers.
-
Gennousuke69
commented
going out of your way to see it or do it in games will lead to a ban, the only parts that are allowed are the unavoidable/story parts, therefore you can draw anything you want, as long as the focus isn't nudity or going out of your way to create nudity, which is completely impossible
-
cullen9
commented
"I'm a Creative streamer. Long before Creative was a thing. I don't want nudity as part of broadcasts. Why? Several reasons. I run a business. Customers come to my channel to see my work, and one of the problems with nudity is that I don't want my business to be associated with it - Be it fine arts or hentai."
This argument is a joke right? there is nudity, sex, prostitution, violence, and gore all over twitch. if you don't want to be associated with it then why are you on twitch?
"That brings up the second reason why I don't want nudity. What is art, and what is porn? There's no hard line, and just because something isn't porn or distasteful to you, doesn't mean it isn't for others. I believe that hentai for instance, is porn. But ask any person who draws hentai, and they'll say it isn't. That it's art (The two are not mutually exclusive)."
So rather than have that discussion, we should all just give in to censorship?
"Creative isn't 18+, and it shouldn't be. There's no good way to allow children browsing Creative with, or without their parents, when there are people drawing dicks in there. (And setting channels to "mature" doesn't do jack)"
just like there is no way to ban kids from watching 18+ games. So we should ban those too right? Let's remove Rust, GTA, Call of duty, Battlefield, etc.
"There's no real good way to moderate this. Even without nudity allowed we've seen countless examples of people crossing the line, be it artful drawing or straight up porn, that have allowed to stream for hours before being shut down. There's no incentive at Twitch to have an admin browsing Creative constantly, verifying that all broadcasts that display genitalia are not crossing whatever arbitrary line Twitch would have to set on "What's porn?"
this is false there's an easy way to moderate it, and I shared this idea with Monkey on Strike a while back. Make it so only approved people can do it, whether it be partners or just an application process. that way you stop all the people who would stream nudity as a form of trolling.
"There are so many things to do in art. If you can't do nudity on stream, it's not that big of a deal, in my honest opinion."
That's because you do leather working and it isn't part of your process, stream, or art. So why fight for others? Nudity isn't part of my art or stream, but I still support others in their choice to fight for the freedom of expression. maybe we could move past seeing so much fan art and start seeing more original works if we allowed more freedom of expression. Diversity on art is a good thing in my opinion.
"The amount of risky content on JTV back when I broadcasted on there was actually enough to make me not want to share my broadcast with people I knew - It had much looser content guidelines, and as a result, it ended up being something I for instance wouldn't want to show my parents, because you never knew when a cam girl was building up an audience she'd then move over to an actual camsite (They did this a lot), or just straight up porn streams. (Porn streams could run for hours as long as they didn't hit frontpage, so if viewer numbers got too high, the broadcaster would put on a weird clown video or something to make part of the audience leave - The lengths people would go just to broadcast porn was stupid - The issue was well known by one of the mods I spoke with at the time) - I don't want Twitch to risk this being anywhere near a possibility to become the norm on their site."
what has this got to do with allowing nudity in art? we aren't talking about having streamers be naked. we are talking about painting and drawing here, not a cam show.