Twitch claims that deepfake porn is now a reason for urging and explains why

by
Reading time: 2 minutes

In a blog post titled “Addressing explicit deepfake content”, twitch reported that Non-Consensual Exploitation Synthetic Images (NCEI) will not be tolerated. That is to say, that now, deepfake porn is prohibited and is a reason for urging.

The platform’s statement, cited in a report by The Vergepoints out that even a brief inadvertent glimpse of such images “will be removed” and if you intentionally promote, create or share fake pornography, that is grounds for an urge: “May result in an indefinite suspension on the first offense.”

Twitch recently had a deepfake scandal on January 30, when streamer Brandon “Atrioc” Ewing left a browser window open on the stream that reportedly displayed the faces of popular female Twitch streamers, including Pokimane, QTCinderella, and Maya Higa, “grafted onto the bodies of naked women,” reported BuzzFeed.

The streamer, in a tearfully apologetic stream, admitted that he visited a fake site out of “morbid curiosity” about the images: “I just clicked a fucking link at 2am and my morale didn’t catch up. I promise not to do something like that again.”

The reaction of the content creators

It’s unclear if Twitch took any enforcement action against Atrioc at the time, but the new policy makes it clear that at least some action would be taken.

QTCinderella spoke on Twitter after the scandal: “I want to scream. Stop spreading it. Stop advertising it. Being seen “naked” against your will should not be part of this job.”

Twitch tends to clamp down on accounts that share sexual images, even when they accidentally land on a live stream. Atrioc himself was previously singled out for displaying a flaccid penis on screen, according to the news site Win.gg.

However, Twitch previously banned “streaming or uploading content containing depictions of actual nudity” and threatened instabans for “violence and sexual exploitation.”

QTCinderella vowed to sue the fake porn site Atrioc brought to the world’s attention, but has since told NBCNews that she gave up: “Every lawyer I’ve talked to has essentially come to the conclusion that we don’t have a case, there’s no way to sue the guy.”