Protect streamers by preventing any access to channel for banned users
This is not to take away from the improvements that have already been made, and are being implemented. The work that is being done is greatly appreciated.
However, further change is needed to better protect streamers for banned users. Merely preventing chatting is not enough to deter harassment, stalking, or intrusive bot behavior.
Most people are aware that measures often can be circumvented, that is not an excuse for the lack of protection that currently exists.
Streamers need a way to completely cut off a user from content. I believe the proposed measures are reasonable, and will also provide protection against abuse as well as preventing intrusive bots from squatting in channels without permission.
The proposed changes are:
1. A banned user is prevented from connecting to a channel's chat completely, which means their name does not appear in the list of viewers.
2. A banned user is prevented from viewing the stream itself, on site or using other means.
3. A banned user is blocked from subscribing and following, and will be automatically unsubscribed and / or unfollowed.
4. A banned user is prevented from viewing any other channel information and content, including the streamer's panels, VODs, clips, followers, and followed accounts.
5. A streamer must be able to toggle an option to treat logged out viewers similarly as a banned user, preventing any access until they log in.
Additionally, to prevent excessive account creation, the following measures should be implemented as well:
6. Accounts need to be verified by e-mail.
7. Limit the amount of accounts per e-mail, to 1 or at a maximum 2.
8. Limit the amount of accounts that can be created from a single IP address per day.
Thank you for your consideration.
We’re happy to announce that we have released an additional update to address these concerns. Streamers can now prevent their banned users from watching their livestreams. You can find and turn on this feature in the Moderation settings section of the Creator Dashboard, through the “Stop banned users from viewing stream” toggle.
Please note, this update 1). does not prevent users from watching livestreams from an incognito window or while logged out and 2). does not prevent users from viewing VODs, clips or highlights. We plan to explore extending the functionality of bans further, including but not limited to preventing VOD and clip playback.
In addition, we’ve made an update so that users that are blocked will now automatically be blocked from watching a streamer’s livestreams.
We will leave this thread open for your other points regarding preventing view of other content types and account creation.
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Mysidia commented
The actions such as blocking a user completely from even Read-Only access to stream and chat are extremely severe and unreasonable for mere chat rule-breaking --- Twitch broadcasts are supposed to be public content. I believe these options should only be available to Twitch site admin staff, and only in response to a serious Twitch ToS violation such as harassment has been reported that would warrant suspending the user from all access.
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NIJAN MANUL commented
seriously guys, you always "protect" viewers from streamers, but never think about tape drives! they write me so much shit on twitch and no one thinks about my feelings! and even after the viewer's ban, they continue to write me private messages or create new accounts, and even a confirmed kidney does not help! it is necessary at the block to completely deny access to those people who are not pleasant to the streamer!
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Anonymous commented
I was just thinking about this yesterday.
I've been harassed for months by a single person that just doesn't get the hint. Tried adding me as a friend; declined, muting/blocking doesn't work because every time I turn around, there they are in the same places I am.Just to irk me even more they modded me in their channel (thankfully /unmod is a thing now) along with following me on Twitch and other socials. They just wont go away. There's only so much blocking/muting one can do before it starts to make you feel extremely uncomfortable.
Also sadly reporting has done nothing.I fully back this idea.
The harassment needs to stop & I think of this as the 'I don't exist to you' option. -
Rachel Kelly commented
Yes please, I worry about increased notoriety and have seen friends harassed
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TsukiZer0 commented
Also a better idea is to allow us to block who we don't want to see or be sent to.
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Anonymous commented
To ActiveB1t, the reason this is anonymous is because (as folks on the internet tend to do) is to label or malign people who would speak counter. Am I saying something 'negative'? No. I'm pointing out the reality of the situation. Yes, I realize this is due to harassment, but as a company their reach can only go so far.
IP addresses are dynamic and can be shared by entire buildings meaning perfectly innocent users can get passed bad IPs. There are free services that offer unlimited disposable email addresses. I'm assuming that said person tweets when they go live or that they have a regular schedule for streaming? A person doesn't even need to be logged in to watch. I see point 5 you've made, but again, you're asking Twitch to enable private streaming for logged in users only; YT doesn't even go that far. They allow for a test 'Private' stream, a 'Public' stream, and an 'Unlisted' stream whereby only those with the link can view the stream (account or no account).
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lexasaurus commented
@FriedPickles
The limited amount of accounts per email is actually an extremely good idea. Yes, people could continue to go make new emails to make new accounts with. But setting up a new email, then making a new account and verifying the new email would take much longer than using the one email to make infinite accounts. Since the process would be significantly harder, I would probably deter a lot of people from trolling.
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FriedPickles commented
The limit amount of accounts per emal is pretty not good because they can make more emails and keep make more acc. but the rest is good
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lexasaurus commented
Please, PLEASE DO THIS. Twitch you need to do SOMETHING. I am constantly harassed by banned people coming back with new accounts. I once had someone come back with upwards of 12 different accounts over the course of an hour. That's at least one new account every 5 minutes. It was disruptive and upsetting, to say the least. I have had countless other issues with banned users that I wont get in to. But needless to say, I support this whole heartedly.
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ActiveB1t commented
To anonymous, if you've actually read the proposal you'll have noticed these are measures to help protect streamers from stalkers and harassment, which is made easier by the current state of the platform which allows near anonymous accounts.
Other problems, however valid, have no bearing on this.
How coincidental is it the only negative comment (so far) has been made by someone anonymous? -
Anonymous commented
Why put effort into measures that can be easily and quickly circumvented & most people are already aware of how to do this? It's like being a radio station - you can add all these preventative measures, but you can't stop idiots from calling the radio station short of taking away all the phones nearby. Even then, they can still listen to the radio.
You're asking for a private streaming feature and it's just gonna cause problems down the road. There's enough issues with copyrighted stuff and trolls re-streaming adult stuff.
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catfishsushi commented
The complete cutoff from banned profiles is good security, as today, I had a Ubuntu Host Spider Bot named "electricallongboard" and other such Bots, turn back on my turning off of channel auto-hosting, and a bogus complaint about music rights in War Thunder, was there. This must STOP, who owns TwitchTV? the Rightful Creators? or the Bots?
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Ravenhart commented
This is a good idea but maybe it shouldn't be the same as banning. Maybe a "block all contact/communication" feature that could do all this. Banning from a chat is a lot different than blocking someone from everything. Accidental bans happen and making banning do all this effect too many innocent ppl in the end.
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DancingViru commented
I second all of this. The community guidelines imply that it's the streamer's responsibility to have the chat moderated but these kind of loopholes allow abusers to continue harassing & disturbing the broadcasters & the chat. Which is why it's essential for the broadcasters to have the option to deny channel content for different types of viewers!
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VaughnWhiskey commented
When you ban someone, they should be banned from viewing your stream as well as not being able to chat in your chat
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Fancy_That commented
So we do need some security measure like this.. How about banning the IP?
It isn't fun being stalked online, and have players follow you in the game griefing you from lobby to lobby non-stop for like two days in a row. I already "reported" the individual for this, but he/she will be able to view my stream if they (Twitch) do not take the situation seriously, and he/she will continue to stalk I, and another streamer, in game. It's a pestilence, and harassment. If they're not going to give some sort of measure in somehow banning an individual from accessing another's stream to stalk people, then I hope Twitch perma bans this individual. It's just flat out creepy.
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darthclide commented
@LordBoogzor but this ties into Twitch's complacency about updating their flawed whisper system. It doesn't matter if the OP suggestion is accepted, when they can simply whisper anyone on all of twitch even if they were banned from ALL streams in existence...
That being said, I firmly believe that trolls get a kick out of getting a notification from a stream they are banned from, watching a stream they are banned from, and seeing a chat they are banned from. The icing on the cake is whispering insults to viewers such as "this streamer is a pedophile". Please Twitch, help the small streamers!
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Bul commented
Hej there, yesterday i had a troll in my channel. Nothing special...
Ignored him, banned him without reaction. Done
5 Mins later hes back with a new account. 1 sentence - banned.
5 Mins later hes back with a new account. 1 sentence - banned.I know, it is not possible to turn this off, but why does a Ban not include the ban of the Ip? Yes, the User could restart his Router/modem, get a new Ip and come back, but this would be a lot more work then just creating a new account.
If this is possible, maybe this would be an idea to make the life of trolls harder a little bit.
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Ollee64 commented
Host ignore would be nice at a twitch level, especially if it was parallel to banned user accounts, but blocking a viewer from watching your stream will never be implemented. It has been discussed elsewhere on here, just look for IP Ban or something in the search on the right and you'll find that that feature is infeasible.
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thefredski commented
It would be nice to block a specific user to host and even view my stream. I worked hard to get my viewers and for someone who is mean to me, doesn' t deserve any followers or viewers watching my stream.