Twitch pauses new feature after accidentally promoting porn

If there is anywhere on the internet where rule 34 is likely to thrive, it is on the streaming platform of the same name.

The company seems to have been taken by surprise when its new boost train feature began to recommend porn to its audience.

The experimental feature was launched to a select number of growing streamers in October of 2021.

The paid boost was modeled after a similar feature, which only allowed organic engagement from viewers to get a streamer's broadcast pushed onto twitch

The change to a pay-to-play model allowed anyone with enough cash to get what they wanted.

The live broadcasts with topless women and the Promoted by streamer's community banner in the thumbnail were the first to surface.

It looks like determined troll are paying for accounts with access to the boost train and then creating hype trains to get porn on the front page.

Tweet may have been deleted

It costs a lot of change to get streams onto twitch. Bussey theorizes that the pornographic streams were a result of troll campaigns wanting to protest the company&s attempt at implementing paid promotions. The new feature snuck paid ads into the recommendation sections that used to highlight streamers who earned their spot through hard-won organic engagement.

In December, Bussey questioned the benefits of these pricey paid promotions after collecting data that suggested they didn't do much to help streamers reach new audiences. Poor discoverability has been a longstanding issue for both users and aspiring creators, which the company claimed this expensive new feature would help solve.

Bussey told Kotaku that it should never have been released. Monetizing front page discovery for a service that struggles to offer any discovery is a recipe for disaster.

The offending streams were initially banned for violating the terms of service.

Sexually explicit content, including pornography, is not allowed on the platform, according to a statement provided to several outlets. Our experiments help us learn and make even better tools for the community, and we use the feedback from this experiment to inform how we approach future.

You would think that a platform that is notoriously puritanical would be better equipped to filter out porn by now. One of the most predictable turns of events is when users misappropriate a tool on the internet for porn. This is not the first time that pornography has been removed from the platform. It will likely be the last.

The platform has a reputation for being hypocritical around sexuality. The dress code for streamers who have the audacity to own breasts is included in the guidelines, along with other double standards like banning fully clothed cosplayers, and providing bikini streamers with a dedicated hot tub subcategory.

With a projected net worth of $6 billion in 2022, it is clear that the platform is dedicated to making it as profitable as possible. It's not clear if it will prioritize users and creators who make money in the future.