Twitch has added an anti-harassment tool called 'Shield Mode' that promises to make the platform safer for streamers. The biggest game streaming platform in the world, Twitch has been criticized for not doing enough to curb the rampant harassment, bigotry and trolling that streamers have to face all the time. Last year, the site also became home to a disturbing amount of hate raids, with bots flooding various streams with racial slurs and profanity. Several anti-Twitch hashtags gained traction on social media as a result, forcing the company to acknowledge that it needs to deal with harassment on the platform more effectively.
Since then, Twitch has added multiple new safety options for streamers, including the ability to share the list of banned users from their streams with other creators. Twitch says that the tool could help keep serial offenders away from vulnerable streamers and help to improve safety on the platform. Twitch has also promised to grant creators more control over who can raid them as part of its plans to reduce instances of hate raids on the website. A raid is Twitch-speak for when a creator automatically sends over their viewers to another channel when they end their stream. However, the feature has been used to harass creators, especially those from minority communities.
Twitch's new 'Shield Mode' is similar to the community-developed 'panic button' that was designed to protect users from hate raids last year. Like the panic button, the new feature seeks to protect streamers and their audience by making it easy to weed out bad actors, disruptive users, trolls and harassers. The feature allows users to set up a one-click option that can be activated whenever a creator feels threatened in any way by other users on the platform. It does so by offering access to a slew of old and new tools that can be activated to make the stream more peaceful and devoid of insults and hate. The feature is also available for moderators to ensure that the chat remains topical and respectful.
A Safer Twitch For Streamers And Their Audience
Along with easy access to existing protection features, Shield Mode also introduces two entirely new features. The first is a bulk-ban option that allows streamers to mass-ban all users who recently used a pre-determined word or phrase. Creators can also un-ban users or report them to Twitch if they want.
Another new feature exclusive to Shield Mode is the ability to ban first-time chatters. According to Twitch, this will prevent people from speaking on a channel if they haven't interacted on it before. The company believes that this will be a powerful tool to stop bots and trolls from infiltrating chats and disrupting streams and another necessary step to stop harassment on Twitch for good.
Source: Twitch