Twitch joins the battle against pornographic deepfakes
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Twitch reported that it will permanently ban users who share pornographic deepfakes on its platform as it represents a violation of community standards.
Twitch announced that those users who post pornographic deepfakes of either streamers or famous people will be banned from the platform immediately , in what represents a change in the policy that had been applied on the platform.
Through a statement published on the Twitch blog, the streaming platform specified that content that includes synthetic images of non-consensual exploitation (NCEI) is completely prohibited and will lead to instant bans.
“Deepfake pornography is not a problem on Twitch, but it is a terrible problem that some streamers (almost exclusively women) can face on the Internet in general,” reads the text published on its website.
They explained that for this reason they decided to modify their regulations to take this type of material into account so that they can protect content creators.
This initiative comes shortly after a scandal broke out on Twitch after streamer Brandon “Atrioc” Ewing, during a broadcast, his followers were able to see that the content creator had a browser tab open with this type of pornographic content. .
However, the main problem with this fact was that those who appeared in the images were other world-renowned streamers such as Pokimane, QTCinderella and Maya Higa , all of them with their faces edited on the bodies of naked women. This led to the streamer being forced to publicly apologize in a video in which he admitted that he had searched for the footage out of curiosity.
“I just clicked a fucking link at 2 am and my spirits didn't catch up with me,” Ewing said, adding that he wouldn't do anything like that again.
Despite this, the streamers in question spoke out against the forced sexualization to which they were being subjected , especially since it was something that was happening without their consent.
All of this led to other Twitch content creators like Sweet Anita discovering that there are pornographic deepfakes featuring their faces that are available online for anyone who wants to access them.
“This story was how I found out I'm on this website. I don't know whether to cry, break things or laugh at this moment”; Anita posted on her Twitter account.