On May 14 Twitch revealed their Safety Advisory Council, a group of volunteers selected from among partnered Twitch streamers, and various non-profits devoted to causes such as online bullying, and inclusivity for the purpose of offering advice on Twitch community function. In the announcement post the stated goals and purpose of the council are as follows:
The Safety Advisory Council will inform and guide decisions made at Twitch by contributing their experience, expertise, and belief in Twitch’s mission of empowering communities to create together. The Council will advise on a number of topics including:
Drafting new policies and policy updates
Developing products and features to improve safety and moderation
Promoting healthy streaming and work-life balance habits
Protecting the interests of marginalized groups
Identifying emerging trends that could impact the Twitch experience
On the face, this appears to be a good idea. As the platform has grown Twitch has found itself more and more removed from the users of the platform, and an effort to bring in greater input from the community would help make the decisions Twitch makes better serve the needs of the community. However, in the days following the announcement of the council one member in particular has made comments and behaved in a manner that completely undermines and runs contrary to the stated goals of the council.
The streamer FerociouslySteph, in streams following the announcement, proceeded to gloat at and subtly threaten members of the Twitch community that expressed concerns over her belief that voice chat should be banned from competitive games, and her comments labeling gamers as white supremacists. In these clips Steph dances to what she calls ‘the tears of gamers’ and states that a lot of people “should be afraid” of her and how she is “coming for” who she deems “shitty people”. She also makes very clear her intentions by stating that she “has power, and they [Twitch] can’t take it away” and that Twitch has endorsed her to go after people.
Naturally this generalized harassment of the Twitch community and unabashed display of a lust for power, and an eagerness to abuse it for personal reasons, only confirmed the concerns of the community. The comments were so outrageous that Twitch CEO Emmett Shear had to post a statement distancing Twitch from FerociouslySteph’s comments and assuring the community that the council are purely advisory, are not Twitch staff, and would not have decision-making powers. In relation to the comments from Steph, Shear wrties:
They are not Twitch employees, and they do not speak on Twitch’s behalf. While we value their opinions and their right to share them, they are independent actors who will have opinions that aren’t shared either by Twitch, Twitch employees, or even by other members of the council. Nevertheless, we believe that having diverse viewpoints will make the council and its recommendations stronger, and ultimately better for our community.
The official statement from Twitch’s CEO has fallen short of assuring the community because the post is intended to distance Twitch from Steph’s toxic behavior rather than addressing the behavior itself. This failure to properly address the issue sends a clear message that Steph, while incorrect in her assumption of having “power”, was correct in her assessment that Twitch would not call her on her toxic behavior.
There also remains the fact that while the council will not be direct decision-makers, they will be in a role of advising the decision-makers on various roles that do include overall site rules and policies. This means that when Twitch looks for input from the community on site features, rules, policies, and more, they will turn to the council, and the experiences of users will be filtered through the council representatives. This makes the integrity of the council, and the trust between them and the Twitch community, a paramount issue. Steph spat and danced upon that trust killing it before it even had an opportunity to form. That breach alone should be enough to justify action. The post from Shear states that Twitch doesn’t endorse Steph’s actions, but the silence is endorsement, as any of the experts on bullying on the council should be able to inform him. They could also tell him that failure by the authority to properly handle the bully only serves to re-traumatize the victim and enforce the idea that the authority figures can’t be trusted because they won’t help anyway.
By not taking swift and decisive action to establish the Safety Advisory Council, they have chopped it’s effectiveness off at the knees. Twitch has faced an image problem among the community in recent years, much of it stemming from multiple incidents of Twitch policy being applied unfairly among different streamers for the same violation. The most recent example being contracted Twitch Steamer Pokimane accidentally flashing a pornographic video on stream, a violation that would result in an immediate ban for smaller streamers. The perception that Twitch plays favorites has become a deeply ingrained fact for the community, and the botching of the Safety Advisory Council has reduced what could have been an effective first step in rebuilding the bridge between the community and the platform into another shining example of corporate favoritism.
After seeing the way that Twitch has botched the launch of the council by engaging in the same misapplication of rules they have become known for, the Twitch community has no reason to believe that the council will reflect the interests of the community and creating a safe environment. The messaging and meaning of the council has been effectively hijacked by Stepth’s outright toxicity, and the company’s failure to handle it. The community now sees the council as a group indifferent to the needs of the users and any feedback from the council will reflect personal interests and abusing any modicum of power the council may have. At this stage, The Safety Advisory Council has succeeded in making Twitch less safe than it was the day before the announcement. Whether Twitch can properly steer this catastrophe back on track remains to be seen, but for now, the company is the proverbial deer caught in headlights.
