Two days was all it took for Twitch to change it’s mind and revert to the previous Sexual Content policy. So, no more artistic nudity. The brief change would have allowed depictions of ‘fictionalized nudity,’ provided it was labeled properly.
“Upon reflection, we have decided that we went too far with this change,” Twitch CEO Dan Clancy said in a blog post addressing the policy change. “Digital depictions of nudity present a unique challenge – AI can be used to create realistic images, and it can be hard to distinguish between digital art and photography.” The revert to the previous policy went into effect on Friday, December 15th. “Depictions of real or fictional nudity won’t be allowed on Twitch, regardless of the medium.”
Clancy clarified some streamers “created content that was in violation” of the new policy in response to the update. The content was quickly removed and channel enforcements were issued.
On December 13th, Twitch chose to change their Sexual Content Policy, which would allow “artistic” depictions of nudity. The depictions could be drawn, animated, or sculpted “fully exposed female-presenting breasts and/or genitals or buttocks regardless of gender.” Provided the creators labeled the content as containing sexual themes.
“There is a thriving artist community on Twitch, and this policy was overly punitive and did not reflect the impact of the content,” the blog post stated about the new policy.
Twitch has not changed their policy regarding games “featuring nudity, pornography, sex or sexual violence as a core focus or feature.” Those games are still strictly banned from the platform. However, games that have nudity, where it is not a core focus, are allowed as long as they are classified Maturely-Rated.
