Twitch is retreating from its “artistic nudity” policy, which permitted broadcasters to present drawn, animated, or sculpted renditions of breasts, buttocks, and genitals.
Twitch made the statement only days after it unveiled major changes to its sexual content policy, which simplified the platform’s community standards and permitted nudity in some settings, such as art streaming. The reversal comes after many in Twitch’s art community voiced concerns about the number of AI-generated photorealistic nudes flooding Twitch’s art category when the rules were amended.
Twitch is once again prohibiting portrayals of both actual and fictitious nudity as of Friday. Streamers may still display nudity in mature-rated games.
Twitch CEO Dan Clancy said in a blog post that the business first modified its nudity policy in response to comments from art broadcasters who complained that the current rules were “limiting.” The modification was intended to enable artists to “utilize the human form in their art,” he said. Streamers have created a “great deal” of fresh Twitch material since the upgrade on Wednesday.
“A lot of the content created has sparked community concern.” “These are our concerns,” Clancy added. “After careful consideration, we have concluded that we went too far with this change.” Digital portrayals of nudity provide a special issue since AI may be used to make realistic pictures, and it can be difficult to tell the difference between digital art and photography.”
Clancy also said that the firm is not making any other adjustments to the new sexual content policy.
The original modification was intended to simplify and explain Twitch’s position on nudity, but the policy’s hyper-specific standards instead increased the gray area between what was and wasn’t permitted on the site. “Fictionalized” images of completely exposed breasts, buttocks, and genitals were permitted, but “augmented reality avatars” such as VTubers had to follow the same dress code as ordinary streamers. A Twitch spokeswoman told Eltrys that nudity was allowed if fixed and that VTubers might interact with an audience and make “gestures” that could breach the platform’s standards, which prohibit any sexual actions on live.
The modifications made on Friday have not altered Twitch’s dress code policy. Female streamers must cover their nipples and are not permitted to reveal “underbust,” although they may exhibit cleavage. It’s still uncertain if sideboob is permitted.
The original upgrade permitted artistic nudity as long as authors described their stream as including “sexual themes.” Viewers must actively search for adult content, such as “drugs, intoxication, or excessive tobacco use,” “gambling,” and “violent and graphic depictions” in addition to “sexual themes,” on Twitch’s homepage. According to a Twitch representative, the enhanced content categorization system is meant to guarantee that viewers agree to watching adult material while also giving advertisers greater control over where their advertising is broadcast. Twitch expects that by doing so, it will enhance brand trust by putting advertising on the site.
The removal of NSFW material limitations was widely welcomed by Twitch’s art community; however, some have expressed reservations about how the policy was handled. While a few artists advocated for Twitch to outright prohibit nudity, others urged the site to implement additional safeguards to prevent viewers from viewing adult material, such as blurring broadcast thumbnails and offering filtering options while browsing the art category. Users on Twitch’s community feedback forum UserVoice suggested adding a separate mature label for artistic nudity rather than the general “sexual themes” tag, as well as creating a separate homepage for 18+ content so that creators who tag their streams with mature labels can still be discovered. According to one artist on UserVoice, the art category has been swamped by non-art NSFW stuff and AI-generated nudes since Wednesday’s upgrade.
“Not to say that is not art, and those accounts didn’t exist before; they have just appeared in our category due to this new policy,” Kamisama_Kimi, a streamer, said. “The art category has been there for years, for people streaming and watching art, and our beloved space has turned into a bag for those who don’t know which category they should be streaming in, making it quite uncomfortable.”
Overall, social media platforms fail to handle conditional nudity regulations. Consensual nudity and sexual material are permitted on Reddit and were formerly permitted on X (formerly Twitter). It is more difficult to moderate “artistic nudity” or “non-sexual nudity” since the border between nudity and sexual content is subjective. Nudity is prohibited on Instagram, with the exception of photographs of artworks and sculptures, nursing, childbirth, postpartum moments, and health-related scenarios such as breast cancer treatment or gender confirmation surgery. Nonetheless, users claim that material with visible, exposed breasts is often identified and removed, even if it fits within the policy’s exclusions.
Similar concerns have been made about Tumblr, which notably banned porn in 2018 before reversing course last year with a policy change that permits “nudity and other kinds of adult material” but not “visual depictions of sexually explicit acts or content with an overt focus on genitalia.” Tumblr, like Instagram, may delete nude material that does not breach the Community Guidelines, according to artists and adult content makers.
The sites with the clearest standards either allow or do not allow nudity and sexual material. Conditional nudity laws that aim to distinguish “good nudity,” such as in art, from “bad nudity,” or sexual material, are not as progressive as they are portrayed to be.
In Twitch’s instance, even the most rigorous, explicit policy wording has flaws. None of the amended guidelines’ comprehensive examples addressed the true danger to artists online: realistic AI-generated nudes.
“While I wish we would have predicted this outcome, part of our job is to make adjustments that serve the community,” Clancy said in a Facebook post. “I apologize for the confusion that this update has caused.”
