Twitch reveals new plans to combat predatory and harmful accounts

  ❘   Published: 2022-11-23T22:27:40

  ❘   Updated: 2022-11-23T22:27:49

Twitch has provided an update on its plans to combat predatory and harmful accounts on the platform, including acquiring an AI company to help detect harmful text on the platform.

As Twitch continues to gain popularity throughout the world, it’s become open to bad actors joining the platform.

A report from Bloomberg back in September found thousands of predatory accounts on Twitch, prompting the company to publish a blog post regarding the issue on the same day.

The Amazon-owned company issued an update to its blog post on November 23, revealing new plans and methods to combat predatory accounts.

Twitch reveals new plans to combat predatory accounts

In the post, the platform explained that they’ve continued to work on the ways it keeps users under 13 from having accounts on Twitch.

The post listed three different measures that have been put into place, including blocking users from creating new accounts after being suspended for being under 13 years old.

On top of that, Twitch has introduced mandatory phone verification requirements before users can stream as a way to prevent younger users who made accounts with false information from going live.

Twitch also revealed that on top of preventative measures, it has introduced ways to monitor for predatory behavior and trend with updated privacy settings for Whispers and blocked certain search terms to find content on the website.

Also, the company recently acquired Spirit AI, an artificial intelligence company that will support the company by building ways to detect “harms of all kinds” in the written text on Twitch.

Despite all of this, the company still wants your help: “To stay ahead of predatory bad actors, collaboration is critical. We urge anyone with information about grooming on Twitch to share it with us so we can protect the children involved.”