Twitch Cracking Down On Age Restriction

Today, Twitch provided an update on their efforts to combat child exploitation online. Twitch is continuing to work to prevent children under the age of 13 off the streaming site in addition to making some policy changes.

Twitch described the “ongoing work to combat online grooming” in an update to a blog post from earlier this fall, which includes figuring out how to stop children from opening accounts. However, there weren’t many specifics about how the platform is achieving it. Today, however, Twitch provided a much more thorough justification of how it prevents young children from using the site without the necessary parental supervision. 

The website claimed that it has worked to improve the methods it uses to identify and delete accounts of users who are less than 13 years old. Its required phone verification is one of the ways it aids in preventing those underage people from creating accounts in the first place. The platform further claimed that it is “bolstering the ways” in which it prevents predatory behavior. This includes working with “expert organizations” in the field of grooming prevention and updating privacy settings. Spirit AI, which Twitch now has, will aid with language processing in a way that detects dangerous behaviour.

The platform stated; “Our push to stop online predation is an always-on priority and responsibility. As we mentioned in our original post below, at Twitch, we classify grooming as ‘imminent harm.’ This tier is one of the highest possible classifications for threats on our service. In effect, this means that we treat grooming as seriously as other types of CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material), which regularly includes reporting cases to law enforcement. This categorization ensures that fighting grooming is always a priority.”