\n<\/p>\n
Days after freeing the (fictionalized) nipple, Twitch<\/a> is backtracking on its \u201cartistic nudity\u201d policy that allowed streamers to show illustrated, animated or sculpted renderings of breasts, butts and genitals.<\/p>\n The announcement comes days after Twitch announced sweeping updates<\/a> to its sexual content policy, which streamlined the platform\u2019s community guidelines and allowed nudity in certain contexts, such as art streams. The reversal comes after many in Twitch\u2019s art community, who have long rallied for the platform to lift restrictions on nudity in art, raised concerns over the volume of AI-generated photorealistic nudes flooding Twitch\u2019s art category since the policy was updated.<\/p>\n Effective Friday, depictions of both real and fictional nudity are banned on Twitch again. Streamers will still be able to show nudity in Mature-rated games.<\/p>\n In a blog post<\/a>, Twitch CEO Dan Clancy wrote that the company initially updated its nudity policy in response to feedback from art streamers, who complained that the existing restrictions were \u201climiting.\u201d The update was supposed to allow creators to \u201cutilize the human form in their art,\u201d he said. Since the update on Wednesday, streamers have made a \u201cgreat deal\u201d of content that was newly allowed on Twitch.<\/p>\n \u201cMuch of the content created has been met with community concern. These are concerns we share,\u201d Clancy said. \u201cUpon reflection, we have decided that we went too far with this change. Digital depictions of nudity present a unique challenge \u2014 AI can be used to create realistic images, and it can be hard to distinguish between digital art and photography.\u201d<\/p>\n Clancy added that the company isn\u2019t adding further changes to the new sexual content policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n The initial update was meant to streamline and clarify Twitch\u2019s stance on nudity, but the hyper-specific guidelines that the policy laid out only expanded the gray area between what was and wasn\u2019t allowed on the platform. \u201cFictionalized\u201d depictions of fully-exposed breasts, butts and genitals were allowed, but \u201caugmented reality avatars\u201d like VTubers had to abide by the same attire requirements as regular streamers. A spokesperson for Twitch told TechCrunch that nudity was permitted if fixed, and that VTubers could engage with an audience and make \u201cgestures\u201d that could violate the platform\u2019s policies, which forbid any sexual acts on stream.<\/p>\n Twitch\u2019s dress code policy has not been affected by Friday\u2019s changes. Female-presenting streamers must cover their nipples and aren\u2019t allowed to show \u201cunderbust,\u201d but can show cleavage. It\u2019s still unclear if sideboob is allowed.<\/p>\n Under the initial update, artistic nudity was allowed as long as creators labeled their stream as containing \u201csexual themes.\u201d Content tagged with mature labels \u2014 including \u201cdrugs, intoxication or excessive tobacco use,\u201d \u201cgambling\u201d and \u201cviolent and graphic depictions\u201d in addition to \u201csexual themes\u201d \u2014 are not promoted on Twitch\u2019s homepage recommendations, and must be intentionally sought after by users. A spokesperson for Twitch told TechCrunch that the updated content classification system is intended to ensure that viewers consent to seeing mature content, as well as give advertisers more say over where their ads are shown. Twitch hopes to increase brand confidence in running ads on the platform by doing so.<\/p>\n The lifted restrictions on NSFW content was largely embraced by Twitch\u2019s art community, but others have raised concerns over how the policy was implemented. While few creators called for Twitch to ban nudity altogether, some asked for the platform to add more protections to prevent viewers from seeing mature content, like blurring stream thumbnails<\/a> and adding filtering options<\/a> when browsing the art category. On UserVoice, Twitch\u2019s community feedback forum, users also suggested adding a separate mature label for artistic nudity<\/a>, instead of the general \u201csexual themes\u201d tag, as well as creating a separate homepage for 18+ content<\/a> so that creators who tag their streams with mature labels can still be discovered. One artist on UserVoice pointed out<\/a> that since Wednesday\u2019s update, the art category was overrun with non-art NSFW content and AI-generated nudes.<\/p>\n \u201cNot to say that is not art and those accounts didn\u2019t exist before, they have just appeared in our category due to this new policy,\u201d streamer Kamisama_Kimi wrote. \u201cThe art category has been there for years, for people streaming and watching Art, and our beloved space has turned into a bag for those who don\u2019t know which category they should be streaming in, making it quite uncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n Social media sites overall struggle to address conditional nudity policies. Consensual nudity and sexual content is permitted on Reddit, and until recently, was allowed on X (formerly Twitter)<\/a>. Moderating \u201cartistic nudity\u201d or \u201cnon-sexual nudity\u201d is trickier because the line between nudity and sexual content tends to be subjective. Instagram prohibits nudity<\/a> with the exception of photos of paintings and sculptures, breastfeeding, birth giving, after-birth moments and health-related situations, such as breast cancer treatment or gender confirmation surgery. Still, users complain<\/a> that content containing visible, exposed breasts is often flagged and taken down, even if it falls within the policy\u2019s exceptions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Users have similar complaints about Tumblr, which infamously banned porn in 2018 before walking it back last year with a policy update<\/a> that allows \u201cnudity and other kinds of adult material\u201d but not \u201cvisual depictions of sexually explicit acts or content with an overt focus on genitalia.\u201d Artists and adult content creators say that Tumblr enforces the policy inconsistently<\/a>, and like Instagram, may remove nude content that doesn\u2019t violate the Community Guidelines<\/a>.<\/p>\n The sites with the clearest guidelines either allow nudity and sexual content altogether, or don\u2019t. Conditional nudity policies that attempt to separate \u201cgood nudity,\u201d like in art, from \u201cbad nudity,\u201d or sexual content, aren\u2019t as progressive as they\u2019re made out to be.<\/p>\n In Twitch\u2019s case, the most meticulous, clear policy language still had loopholes. None of the detailed examples outlined in the updated guidelines addressed the real threat to artists online: realistic AI-generated nudes.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile I wish we would have predicted this outcome, part of our job is to make adjustments that serve the community,\u201d Clancy said in the post. \u201cI apologize for the confusion that this update has caused.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n