Twitch Streamers to Have Ability to Block Banned Accounts from Viewing Streams
In a recent announcement, Twitch revealed that streamers will soon have the ability to prevent banned users from accessing their streams. Senior Product Manager Trevor Fisher emphasized that this feature will not be automatically activated and can be chosen by streamers. The implementation of this blocking feature is expected to take place within the next few weeks.
“The way it works is if you ban someone and they’re currently watching, the Stream will pause for them, so they immediately lose the ability to watch the stream,” he explained. “And then if you go offline, stream again, they won’t be able to watch your subsequent streams either until you unban them.” He said it would have the same effect regardless of whether a streamer or Moderator blocks someone: That person won’t be able to watch your streams until the block is unblocked.
One notable limitation of the new feature is that it only applies to logged-in users: Anyone watching a stream while logged out of their account can still watch it. Twitch doesn’t block IP addresses (at least not yet), leaving room for a notable exception.
Fisher emphasized that this is a gradual change that will only partially address some of the platform’s moderation issues, including several women accusing Twitch streamers of sexual harassment and abuse. Other steps taken to address the problem have included adding a one-button anti-harassment tool, beefing up its reporting and complaints process, rewriting community policies, and taking a stronger stance against deepfakes. “We know this is an area where people want us to do more, and it’s just taken away one part of the problem at a time,” Fisher said.
