Streaming platform Twitch has its harassment policy revamp coming up soon. And as part of the revamp, it will be making words extremely common on its platform ban-worthy. These are simp, incel, and virgin, among others.
The revelation came via esports commentator Jon Breslau on Twitter. He later updated the tweet thread with an update from Twitch. In it, the company says that just using the words will not result in a ban, but repeated use of them in a harassing manner will.
Twitch now says that you can no longer call others 'simp', 'incel', and 'virgin' as they are now against TOS, along with any emotes relating to the term simp
Twitch baby, what is you doing?
— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) December 16, 2020
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Singling these words out is a little strange, and the update doesn’t really help clear the air much. Harassment on its own would suffice as a bannable offence. And one of these three words have uses outside of simply being derogatory. Adding to that, the ban on the word “simp” specifically can be a nightmare to enforce, considering that it’s just so common in Twitch chats.
On one hand, kudos to Twitch for trying to fight harassment. But on the other, it remains to be seen if the highlighting of specific words will actually help with the effort. According to The Verge, the new policy is set to go into effect early next year, on 22 January.
(Source: Rod Breslau / Twitter via The Verge)
