Twitch’s Sexual Assault Statement Will Fail Without Any Real Action
If Twitch actually wants people to ever trust them again, they need to follow up on their statement with some real action.
Twitch is looking into allegations of sexual misconduct from its affiliated streamers - but it needs to do far more. | Source: REUTERS/Mike Blake
- Over the past 24 hours, many allegations of sexual assault have come out against those in the game and streaming industries.
- Twitch has responded to these allegations, claiming that they will take action.
- If the site ever wants to be taken seriously again, then they need to actually follow up on the statement.
There is a crisis going on for gaming right now. Both Twitch and Mixer have had huge numbers of reports of sexual assault allegations against their biggest stars.
There have been demands for some sort of response from these companies. Eventually, Twitch did release a statement, promising to “look into” these accusations and potentially to work with law enforcement.
As great as it is for Twitch to have responded, their words are empty. Unless they can back them up with some serious action they why would anymore believe them?
Twitch Do Not Have a Good Track Record
Twitch hasn’t exactly got a great track record with their policy enforcement. For years they’ve been accused of inconsistently enforcing their own rules.
In the past, they’ve banned streamers who’ve been following the rules. Such was the case with ForkGirl, a bodypainting streamer. But, they’ve entirely failed to ban truly problematic streamers like Alinity.
It’s not particularly hard to see why some might find their statement a hollow effort. Until Twitch actually starts to police their own service properly, it’s all just so much PR spin.
They Need To Remove Those Accused
Although this situation is ‘just accusations’ at this point, that doesn’t mean Twitch can’t take action. Let’s not forget that these are not individual accusations from unconfirmed sources.
In a lot of cases, such as ProSyndicate and WitWix, there are multiple corroborating accounts of sexual harassment and abuse accusations. The benefit of the doubt only stretches so far.
If Twitch wants people, especially female streamers, to feel safe on their platform, they need to take immediate action. Ban these individuals straight away.
If by some miracle they’re proven innocent it’s not like they can’t be reinstated in the future. Frankly, this seems like a house clearing that the games industry has long needed.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of CCN.com.
William Worrall is a professional writer based out of the UK who has been writing about video and tabletop games for over a decade and has covered industry events such as EGX and UKGE. Contact him at [email protected], see his LinkedIn profile here.