Social-Media
Twitch's prohibition on extremism and terrorist material is explained
Twitch has revised its Group Guidelines, the laws governing the site, to reinforce its ban on militant and radical material. The change seems to be in order to reinforce its vocabulary around this kind of content.
Here’s what it added, per Engadget:
Twitch does not allow content that depicts, glorifies, encourages, or supports terrorism, or violent extremist actors or acts. This includes threatening to or encouraging others to commit acts that would result in serious physical harm to groups of people or significant property destruction. You may not display or link terrorist or extremist propaganda, including graphic pictures or footage of terrorist or extremist violence, even for the purposes of denouncing such content.
Updating the User Standards is a good move for Twitch to explain better how it wants to deal with offending content in the future. This current concept of terrorism and radical material is fascinating because it is really very general: it is possible to envision this rationale being used to prohibit, say, representations of white nationalist activity on the site.
All that said, what is most important about this update is concealed in the last line of the new text: You can not view or link terrorist or extremist propaganda, including graphic photographs or videos of terrorist or extremist activity, except for the purpose of denouncing such material. That's very simple.
You are not permitted to post any kind of terrorist activity on the web, even though your aim is to teach your viewers.
It's going to be fascinating to see which, if any, outlets are debating the latest vocabulary. I can see that this is a real issue with news media streaming activities and demonstrations on the ground — what if another Charlottesville happens? Will the streaming platforms of the case be banned? This is an open issue. Even then, it's a wise move for the organization to take a stance on a topic that's typically plagued by most social media outlets. It's important to note that it was just a year ago that a guy was surviving on Twitch targeting a synagogue in Germany.
