Although Twitch has proved itself to be a fantastic place for content creators of all shapes and sizes to find audiences and enjoyment in live streaming, it's also had its fair share of harassment problems. New guidelines are coming into place for Twitch, which aims to reduce the harassment issues content creators face - this includes cracking down on words and insults that refer to someone's sexual activity like "simp" and "incel".
Not too long ago, Twitch announced new policies for the site including the banning of the Confederate flag due to its ties to racism. Now, in a second Twitch Town Hall (a live-streamed event where the company goes through changes and what audiences and creators want to see from Twitch in the future) it has been confirmed that the site will crack down on emotes and comments insulting people's preferences for sex.
In the "Making Twitch a Safer Community" section of the Town Hall, Sara Clemens the COO of Twitch, notes that certain areas of the community guidelines were to be clarified and updated. What sticks out to many was the specific mention of insults like simp and incel becoming officially offensive words in Twitch's policies that streamers can now take action on.
Clemens says, "Using terms like simp, incel, and virgin as an insult to negatively refer to another person's sexual activity is not allowed under this new policy. And in addition to the policy change, we're also proactively denying emotes that include the term simp and will remove them when reported."
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Simp and incel are terms that although have a negative connotation, are also memed words. Incel is a shortening of involuntarily celibate - a reference to (mainly) men who aren't capable of finding sexual partners. Simp is a newer word which refers again, mainly to men who 'simp' for female creators. Originally this was a term to insult men who spent a lot of money on female creators, or were particularly obsessed with women on the internet, but it quickly became a word thrown at people who were just being nice to women at all.
The new changes to policies will fully come into effect on January 22, and there is a long list of unacceptable actions that will be considered as harassment in the future you can check them out here.
Featured Image Credit: Twitch