Twitch quickly reverses policy that “went too far” allowing nudity

Twitch confirmed its policy banning nudity was sexist.

Twitch quickly reverses policy that “went too far” allowing nudity

Enlarge (credit: SOPA Images / Contributor | LightRocket)

Just two days after updating its policy to allow for more nudity, Twitch has announced that it's immediately "rolling back the artistic nudity changes."

"Moving forward, depictions of real or fictional nudity won’t be allowed on Twitch, regardless of the medium," Twitch CEO Dan Clancy wrote in a blog post on Friday.

Clancy explained the decision to reverse course, writing that the policy was updated in response to user requests that Twitch "allow the thriving artist community on Twitch to utilize the human form in their art."

However, soon after the policy was changed, Clancy said that an unquantified number of streamers "created content that was in violation of our new policy." Twitch also received complaints about other uploaded content "that was allowed under the updated policy" but sparked concerns that Twitch shared.

"Upon reflection, we have decided that we went too far with this change," Clancy wrote. "Digital depictions of nudity present a unique challenge—AI can be used to create realistic images, and it can be hard to distinguish between digital art and photography."

Clancy confirmed that there are currently no other changes to the sexual content policy recently announced that briefly allowed more nudity after years of banning mostly female-presenting streamers who were penalized for violating sexual content policies that Twitch now admits were too confusing.

In one prominent example, just two days before the policy change, Twitch banned OnlyFans model Morgpie for posting "topless" streams. Although Morgpie's videos were shot to imply nudity, they "never actually showed content that explicitly violated Twitch’s sexual content policies," TechCrunch reported. To critics, Twitch's rationale for banning Morgpie remains unclear.

In a blog post on Wednesday, Twitch Chief Customer Trust Officer Angela Hession wrote that Twitch "received consistent feedback from streamers that our current policies around sexual content are confusing and that it can be difficult to know how their content will be interpreted based on these policies."

Hession confirmed that Twitch's policy prohibiting "content that ‘deliberately highlighted breasts, buttocks or pelvic region,’ even when fully clothed" was confusing.

"Streamers found it difficult to determine what was prohibited and what was allowed and often evaluating whether or not a stream violated this portion of the policy was subjective," Hession wrote.

Combined with another policy that restricted "sexually suggestive" content, Twitch's former policy was found to be "overly punitive" and "resulted in female-presenting streamers being disproportionately penalized," Hession wrote.

In an effort to eliminate confusion, Twitch announced that it had consolidated two separate policies that addressed sexual content under Twitch's community guidelines into one single sexual content policy. That policy "specifies the types of sexual content that are prohibited on Twitch" and clarifies enforcement.

Another key part of the policy overhaul, Twitch has also begun allowing some sexual content that was previously restricted, so long as appropriate Content Classification Labels (CCLs) indicating sexual themes are applied.

Now, labeled content is allowed that features "body writing on female-presenting breasts and/or buttocks regardless of gender" and "erotic dances that involve disrobing or disrobing gestures, such as strip teases."

These labels will ensure that content is not removed but also prevent mature content from being promoted on the homepage, Hession wrote, ensuring that no Twitch user ever encounters inappropriate content that they do not wish to see. The only exceptions will be made for streams labeled as including mature-rated games and profanity, which will still appear in the main feed on the homepage. Streams with sexual themes label will, however, still be recommended in the left bar of the homepage, where a thumbnail isn't displayed.

"We believe that accurate content labeling is key to helping viewers get the experience they expect, and now that we can enable appropriate labeling of sexual content using CCLs we believe that some of the restrictions in our former policies are no longer required," Hession wrote. "In addition to providing clarity, these updates will also reduce the risk of inconsistent enforcement and bring our policy more in line with other social media services."

Failing to label sexual content can result in penalties, like warnings, but not suspensions, Hession wrote. Twitch will automatically apply labels to sexual content missing labels, and any repeated failure to label content could result in a label "temporarily locked onto the stream."

In addition to real and fictional nudity, some other sexual content is still prohibited, including pornographic content, youth nudity, "fictionalized sexual acts or masturbation," and "simulated sexual activity or erotic roleplay with other players in online games." Uploading such prohibited content can result in content removals or account suspensions. A complete overview of what's still banned can be found here.

Clancy wrote that Twitch is now "in the process of pushing out updates" to its community guidelines that reflect the latest changes to the sexual content policy.

"While I wish we would have predicted this outcome, part of our job is to make adjustments that serve the community," Clancy wrote. "I apologize for the confusion that this update has caused."

This story was updated on December 15 to reflect changes to Twitch's policy.

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Jeff Bezos says what we’re all thinking: “Blue Origin needs to be much faster”

“We’re going to become the world’s most decisive company across any industry.”

Jeff Bezos holding aviation glasses up to his face.

Enlarge / Jeff Bezos, shortly after he rode on New Shepard to space. (credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos gives very few interviews, but he recently sat down with the computer scientist and podcaster Lex Fridman for a two-hour interview about Amazon, Blue Origin, his business practices, and more.

The discussion meanders somewhat, but there are some interesting tidbits about spaceflight, especially when the conversation turns to Blue Origin. This is the space company Bezos founded more than 23 years ago. He has invested an extraordinary amount of money into Blue Origin—likely somewhere between $10 billion and $20 billion—and it truly is a passion project.

But the inescapable truth about Blue Origin is that to date, it has been a disappointment in terms of execution. At present, Blue Origin employs approximately 11,000 people, about the same total as SpaceX. However, Blue Origin has launched zero rockets this year, whereas SpaceX has launched nearly 100, as well as building and launching thousands of satellites.

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Apple partly halts Beeper’s iMessage app again, suggesting a long fight ahead

Opinion: Beeper isn’t just fighting Apple, it’s pushing against human instincts.

Beeper group chat illustration

Enlarge / The dream of everybody having blue bubbles, and epic photos of perfectly digestible meals, as proffered by Beeper. (credit: Beeper)

A friend of mine had been using Beeper's iMessage-for-Android app, Beeper Mini to keep up on group chats where she was the only Android user. It worked great until last Friday, when it didn't work at all.

What stung her wasn't the return to being the Android interloper in the chats again. It wasn't the resulting lower-quality images, loss of encryption, and strange "Emphasized your message" reaction texts. It was losing messages during the outage and never being entirely certain they had been sent or received. There was a gathering on Saturday, and she had to double-check with a couple people about the details after showing up inadvertently early at the wrong spot.

That kind of grievance is why, after Apple on Wednesday appeared to have blocked what Beeper described as "~5% of Beeper Mini users" from accessing iMessages, both co-founder Eric Migicovksy and the app told users they understood if people wanted out. The app had already suspended its plans to charge customers $1.99 per month, following the first major outage. But this was something more about "how ridiculously annoying this uncertainty is for our users," Migicovsky posted.

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Samsung Galaxy Book4 laptops coming soon with up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 Meteor Lake processor

Samsung has announced a Meteor Lake refresh for its Galaxy Book Pro and Ultra line of premium laptops. The new Galaxy Book4 Ultra is the most powerful of the bunch, with support for up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 407…

Samsung has announced a Meteor Lake refresh for its Galaxy Book Pro and Ultra line of premium laptops. The new Galaxy Book4 Ultra is the most powerful of the bunch, with support for up to an Intel Core Ultra 9 185H processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 graphics, but all of the new laptops feature Intel’s […]

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What happens in a crow’s brain when it uses tools? 

Researchers trace the areas of the brain that are active when birds are using tools.

Three crows on the streets in the foreground with traffic and city lights blurry in the background.

Enlarge / Sure, they can use tools, but do they know where the nearest subway stop is? (credit: Jonas Adner)

"A thirsty crow wanted water from a pitcher, so he filled it with pebbles to raise the water level to drink," summarizes a famous Aesop Fable. While this tale is thousands of years old, animal behaviorists still use this challenge to study corvids (which include crows, ravens, jays, and magpies) and their use of tools. In a recent Nature Communications study, researchers from a collaboration of universities across Washington, Florida, and Utah used radioactive tracers within the brains of several American crows to see which parts of their brains were active when they used stones to obtain food from the bottom of a water-filled tube.

Their results indicate that the motor learning and tactile control centers were activated in the brains of the more proficient crows, while the sensory and higher-order processing centers lit up in the brains of less proficient crows. These results suggest that competence with tools is linked to certain memories and muscle control, which the researchers claimed is similar to a ski jumper visualizing the course before jumping.

The researchers also found that out of their avian test subjects, female crows were especially proficient at tool usage, succeeding in the challenge quickly. “[A] follow-up question is whether female crows actually have more need for creative thinking relative to male crows,” elaborates Loma Pendergraft, the study’s first author and a graduate student at the University of Washington, who wants to understand if the caregiving and less dominant role of female crows gives them a higher capacity for tool use.

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Daily Deals (12-14-2023)

The Epic Games Store is offering an “Epic Coupon” good for 33% off the purchase price of any games in your cart as long a the total is $14.99 or more… and you get a new coupon every time you make an eligible purchase. Meanwhile Humbl…

The Epic Games Store is offering an “Epic Coupon” good for 33% off the purchase price of any games in your cart as long a the total is $14.99 or more… and you get a new coupon every time you make an eligible purchase. Meanwhile Humble Bundle is bringing back some of the year’s most […]

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Pirate Site Blocking Demands Intensify as U.S. Lawmakers Get Fmovies Walkthrough

Lawmakers saw a live demonstration of popular pirate movie streaming site Fmovies at a House Subcommittee Hearing yesterday. The walkthrough served as an introduction to renewed calls for site-blocking measures, which are gaining traction. U.S. Representative Ted Lieu, who swiftly loaded Fmovies on his phone, urged ISPs to block the blatant pirate site, right now.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

fmoviesFor a long time, pirate site blocking was considered a topic most U.S. politicians would rather avoid.

This stance was a remnant of the SOPA defeat, which drove copyright holders to focus on blocking efforts in other countries instead, and not without success.

Those challenging times are now more than a decade old, and momentum is shifting. After more than forty countries around the world instituted site-blocking measures, including in Canada, U.S. lawmakers may be more receptive to revisiting this topic.

House Committee Hearing on Piracy

Yesterday, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet held a hearing on Digital Copyright Piracy. Specifically, lawmakers were interested to learn about the scope of the problem and the solutions available today.

The representatives heard testimony from four witnesses. Rightsholders were represented by MPA’s Karyn Temple, UFC’s Riché McKnight, and award-winning producer Richard Gladstein. On the other side, CCIA’s Matthew Schruers defended the interests of Internet services.

From the start, it was clear that lawmakers see piracy as a serious problem that requires solutions. U.S. Representative and committee chairman, Darrell Issa, started the hearing by presenting an overview of today’s challenges, from a global perspective.

Pirates are ‘Hosted’ on Russian Military Bases

The committee chairman notes that piracy has evolved from back-alley sales of DVDs to international criminal operations. He specifically mentioned the Vietnamese-operated streaming site Fmovies, while Russian military bases also play a role.

“Many of these pirate websites like Fmovies are hosted on servers that exist outside the United States, currently outside our ability to take them down. This creates unique judicial challenges for enforcement against widespread piracy on such websites.

“In some cases, these websites are even hosted within foreign governments, like the Russian government on military bases, and other enemies of the United States,” Rep. Issa adds.

The Russian reference is interesting as the country has some of the most strict anti-piracy laws in the world today. Throughout the hearing, there was no further mention of the Russian military bases, but the comment may refer to optical disc piracy that took place nearly 30 years ago.

Fmovies, on the other hand, remained front and center at the House hearing.

Lawmakers get Fmovies Walkthrough

With over 160 million monthly visits, Fmovies is one of the most notorious pirate streaming sites. The portal recently rebranded to Fmoviesz but the modus operandi remains the same; people can watch whatever they want, whenever they like, without paying a dime.

MPA’s Senior Executive Vice President, Karyn Temple, illustrated the problem by giving a live demonstration of the website at the hearing.

“Anyone can simply type the Fmovies URL into their favorite browser today and an extremely professional and legitimate-looking site pops up. You can literally scroll through thousands of movies and television shows including this year’s Blockbusters and even movies that have not yet hit theaters.

“You’ll see all of our top-rated Blockbusters and popular films. Here you see coming up Wonka, which won’t be out in the United States theaters until this Friday,” Temple said while browsing through the site.

Fmoviesz Demonstration

Temple points out that most of the site’s visitors come from the United States. The MPA tried to take action against the site and encouraged the U.S. Department of Justice to help out but, since Fmovies’ operators are in Vietnam and its servers are in Bulgaria, options are limited.

‘U.S. Needs Pirate Site Blocking’

Several MPA representatives visited Vietnam earlier this year but that hasn’t resulted in concrete enforcement actions either. This means that blocking the site through ISPs, as many other countries do, is one of the only viable options at the moment.

“If we had site blocking in the United States, as we do in the 16 other countries where versions of this site have been blocked already, then this piracy site’s U.S. traffic would have plummeted, protecting us consumers and the US creative sector, while removing the financial incentives for piracy,” Temple said.

“It’s beyond time for Congress to revisit no-fault injunctive relief to combat blatant forms of piracy.”

Why Are ISPs Not Blocking Fmovies Today?

The call for site blocking is supported by other creative industry witnesses, who all describe it as an effective anti-piracy tool. CCIA President Matthew Schruers, whose organization represents several Internet services, was the hearing’s sole dissenting voice in respect of blocking.

“The blunt instrument of architectural regulation is particularly inappropriate for policing subject matter like copyright,” Schruers informed the committee.

“There exists a long history of site-blocking injunctions leading to overreach. This includes examples of overblocking restricting access to thousands of websites, without evidence or process. It is simply not possible to craft a uniquely American, speech-protecting site-blocking regime.”

Schruers stressed that the availability of legal content remains the key option to deter piracy, while noting the availability of less-invasive enforcement avenues that can be explored.

These concerns didn’t immediately convince all lawmakers and U.S. Representative Ted Lieu was particularly vocal. After browsing the Fmovies site on his phone during the hearing, he asked CCIA’s President why ISPs don’t block the site right now.

“I just went on my phone and went on Fmovies and it’s still up. And I can watch Willy Wonka for free without paying for it. Why don’t the online service providers block it right now, like today?” Lieu asked.

“This is such an unreasonable case it is so clearly online piracy copyright infringement and you don’t want your organization and your members to be defending something so blatantly unlawful and unreasonable. So I just ask your members to block that site today.”

‘Block Fmovies Today’

Mr. Schruers highlighted that the broadband access providers who can block the site aren’t here today and again stressed that legal availability is important and that less-invasive anti-piracy options are available. That didn’t convince Rep. Lieu, however, who requested the ISPs to be present at a future hearing.

“I ask the Chair of this Committee to call in a hearing with the witness that represents the members that could block this site and block it now,” Lieu said.

SOPA Scars and Instant Takedowns

Committee Chairman Darrell Issa agreed to invite the ISPs directly for a future hearing, so they can explain their position. Meanwhile, it also became clear that the tensions of the SOPA debates more than ten years ago, have left permanent scars.

“I hope we don’t get into another tumultuous, dysfunctional technical fight as we did twelve years ago,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren noted.

The copyright representatives made repeated callbacks to the previous attempt to establish an American site-blocking regime. At the time, there were massive public protests and a broad revolt by Internet companies who feared overblocking and other negative consequences.

These concerns were real at the time but now that site blocking has been rolled out in dozens of countries around the world, they should be reconsidered.

“None of the hyperbolic predictions about the effects of site blocking have come true. Examples of overblocking of non-infringing content, stifling free expression, or deprivation of due process have been rare to the point of non-existence,” MPA’s Temple said.

Mr. Schruers countered by pointing out that there have been overblocking incidents, reminding lawmakers that Spotify was inadvertently blocked in the House of Representatives ten years ago.

All in all, however, the Committee made it clear that something must be done.

Chairman Darrell Issa ended the hearing by mentioning that the import of copyrighted and trademarked goods can be easily stopped by U.S. customs, suggesting that the same should apply to the ‘import’ of pirated goods online through sites such as Fmovies.

“For what’s possible in the tangible world, we want to find a solution in the Internet world. We will not quit under this committee until we do so,” Issa concluded.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Alphabet’s “Renew Home” company brings power grid data to your smart home

Renew Home tracks power usage, rewards users for cutting use during peak times.

Alphabet’s “Renew Home” company brings power grid data to your smart home

Enlarge (credit: Alphabet)

Google's parent company, Alphabet, is launching a new company called "Renew Home." The new company will pull in some other projects from Nest and the rest of Alphabet to become a supposed one-stop shop for power savings and clean energy usage. The core concept is partnering with power companies to obtain data about the current condition of the power grid and using that data to change consumer habits. The new company is bankrolled by Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners (SIP), an Alphabet venture capital firm.

The first existing service getting pulled into Renew Home is Nest Renew. This service for Nest Thermostats uses power company data to tell consumers how their electricity is being generated and what it costs. That data lets your thermostat do things like automatically shift heating and cooling to times of day when energy is cheaper or cleaner, and shows various reports about the cleanness of the energy you've been using. (Nest's feature that lets utility companies remotely take control of your thermostat, Rush Hour Rewards, does not seem to be part of Renew Home.)

Another Alphabet service being pulled into Renew Home is OhmConnect, which is the same basic idea as Nest's grid data-power thermostat adjustments but for more than just your thermostat. OhmConnect is compatible with a very small list of smart devices, like Nest-rival Ecobee and Honeywell thermostats, TL-Link's "Kasa" smart home system, and Tesla vehicles. The backbone of the service appears to be the in-house "OhmPlug" smart outlet, which can monitor the energy usage of anything that plugs into the wall. By seeing that you've turned these smart devices during peak usage times, OhmConnect offers people rewards like gift cards or cash for not using power when the grid is at capacity.

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Cable lobby and Republicans fight proposed ban on early termination fees

Customers should be allowed to cancel cable TV without penalty, Democrats say.

A hand pointing a TV remote control toward a television in a dark background.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | RoyalFive)

The Federal Communications Commission has taken a step toward prohibiting early termination fees charged by cable and satellite TV providers. If given final approval, the FCC action would also require cable and satellite providers to provide a prorated credit or rebate to customers who cancel before a billing period ends.

The new rules are being floated in a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that the FCC voted to approve yesterday in a 3–2 vote, with both Republicans dissenting. The NPRM seeks public comment on the proposed rules and could lead to a final vote in a few months or so.

"Today's action proposes to adopt customer service protections that prohibit cable operators and DBS (Direct Broadcast Satellite) providers from imposing a fee for the early termination of a cable or DBS video service contract," the FCC said. "Additionally, the NPRM recommends the adoption of customer service protections to require cable and DBS providers to grant subscribers a prorated credit or rebate for the remaining whole days in a monthly or periodic billing cycle after the subscriber cancels service."

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