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Comment by skilled | Hacker News Reader

I've been a Twitch user since its first year. I have a select few streamers I watch, and I spend more time on the platform when there are new releases for games I personally like. But, I have been very in-tune with Twitch culture and I know how disorganized it is when it comes to "big" streamers.

However, my issue (and also disappointment) with Twitch right now is:

- Softcore porn allowed on the platform. Literally, girls doing ass up squats in front of the camera for a $3 donation. You cannot avoid this because its part of the platforms "culture" and even your favorite streamers will one day end up watching a clip or something on their stream. This also breeds incels and very toxic chatters.

- Ads. Twitch is fighting against ad-blockers. Fine by me, I can bare ads, but what I cannot do is bear 5 ads in a row every 30 minutes. This has gotten a lot worse lately. It is annoying and disruptive to the user experience, and thankfully there are streamers who disable them altogether as they can sustain themselves through subscriptions and donations from chatters.

Is there hope Twitch will fix this? I doubt it. I see them as weak and irresponsible bunch that are only interested in money and don't care about mixing things up in the community.

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Twitch will never stop the softcore porn because it's a huge source of revenue and they DGAF that they are serving softcore porn to teens. Honestly I don't care that teens watch cammers or porn, but it's toxic to the platform to have it share the same site, and that also allows payment to be shared and basically makes it way easier for kids to pay cammers, which is super weird IMO. I also really dislike the encouragement of parasocial relationships on the platform. It's a huge problem in camming in general but twitch makes parasocial relationships a competitive sport through some really messed up crowd psychology.

"Mommy give me twenty bucks for twitch bits so I can pay XQC" and then becoming a hot tub stream simp is so much easier than "Mommy give me your credit card so I can create an account on this cam girl site"

I wish more in tech would stop pretending pornography is something benign. This isn't the case, though I personally thought the same just a few years ago. There is data, and victims available to see it is not.

Understanding a Context of Risk: Pornography and Child Sexual Abuse https://osf.io/kf4uv/download/?format=pdf One of the most troubling patterns emerging in the research relates to the increasing number of younger children (under the ages of 12-14) involved in perpetrating child sexual assault. Clinical and legal studies are reporting greater numbers of preteen children demonstrating interpersonal problematic sexual behaviors that intrude on the physical space and security of other children (Friedrich et al., 2006; Swisher et al., 2008).

Most relevant to the purpose of this paper is the role of exposure to sexually explicit media as one of the explanatory variables in child sexual abuse. A meta-analysis of 22 studies demonstrates that exposure to pornography, particularly violent pornography, is significantly associated with increased rates of sexual aggression in the general population (Wright et al., 2016). Given that the average age of first exposure to pornography is age 11 (Wolak et al., 2006), it is important to begin to consider what role, if any, pornography may play in child sexual abuse, particular if perpetrated by children. Several studies have included sexually explicit media as a contributing factor for child-perpetrated sexual abuse.

The Association Between Exposure to Violent Pornography and Teen Dating Violence in Grade 10 High School Students https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6751001/ Exposure to pornography in general has been linked with adolescent dating violence and sexual aggression, but less is known about exposure to violent pornography specifically. The current study examined the association of violent pornography exposure with different forms of teen dating violence (TDV) using baseline survey data from a sample of Grade 10 high school students who reported being in a dating relationship in the past year (n = 1694)

A Meta-Analysis of Pornography Consumption and Actual Acts of Sexual Aggression in General Population Studies https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jcom.12201 Is pornography consumption correlated with committing actual acts of sexual aggression? 22 studies from 7 different countries were analyzed. Consumption was associated with sexual aggression in the United States and internationally, among males and females, and in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies. Associations were stronger for verbal than physical sexual aggression, although both were significant. The general pattern of results suggested that violent content may be an exacerbating factor.

I’ve talked to my friends about this (we all have young children) and they had no idea softcore porn is prevalent on twitch. Not to mention actual adult stars regularly streaming.

And before anybody replies “and whats wrong with that” blah blah, parents still think of twitch as a place where kids can watch minecraft.

Twitch is playing with fire here.

Parents are devoid of all responsibility then?

I don't have a stance on the Twitch/softporn thing, but "think of the kids" is used too often for evil these days.

I think it's more that twitch sells itself as a gaming platform but it's honestly closer to chaturbate than a gaming site.

Sure you can see gaming there, but it's not what dominates and is pushed by the platform.

Strongly disagree. There are lots, LOTS, of game streams. Definitely outnumbering the chaturbate angle.

But how many people want to log in to watch someone with a face for radio and a voice for silent movies narrate some random game?

By comparison, the chaturbate crowd is far fewer in number but has an outsized impact.

Lots of game streams with no one watching them, sure. Meanwhile "Just Chatting" is by far the largest category. And the biggest channel on right now is a pretty young woman in pajamas.

The #1 woman streamer on Twitch is Amouranth who's known for fanservice*, but the #2 is Ironmouse who's a bedridden vtuber and is never even going to show her face.

* but says her abusive boyfriend made her do it for money

Not sure why you are getting grayed but you are right. Ironmouse has the record for third most subs held at a single time on the whole platform since it began tracking this stuff. There are unfortunately a lot of "hot tub girls" and similar on the site, but to say that Twitch is mostly that and barely any gaming streams is super disingenuous. The number of nsfw streamers is pretty small compared to all of the gaming streamers and the nsfw streamer audience is a pretty small portion of Twitch audience as a whole. It is also incorrect to say that Just Chatting is always the top category because of the nsfw content. KaiCenat, who is currently the streamer that pulls in the most viewers at between 90k and 200k viewers each stream and he is in Just Chatting quite often. There are also many, many streamers that make Just Chatting content that is perfectly safe for work(At least if you aren't getting in trouble for watching anything at work!). One of the streamers I watch most is always in Just Chatting and his content is exploring Tokyo and other parts of Japan. Other than the occasional crude joke, his stream is pretty wholesome. I think a lot of people underestimate the scope of Twitch and the size of it's userbase. For the year of 2022, Twitch had an average of 2.58 million concurrent viewers. NSFW channels are a small portion of that, they are just especially noticeable when scrolling through stream lists since they intentionally dress provocatively to pull in viewers.

Of course we do! That's why we're talking to each other about it. Twitch risks a backlash from parents if adult content comes more prevalent on the site.

I blame my parents for allowing me to corrupt myself by watching the spice channel through the scrambler squiggles.

"think of the kids is used too often for evil" is used too often these days.

Not all "think of the kids arguments" are "think of the kids" arguments. A platform ostensibly for game streaming serving softcore is certainly surprising, so for parents too. It's strange to me that tech companies have convinced so many that _obviously_ one should suspect people gaming the system everywhere and the onus is on the user. Curation and basic levels of QA are just no longer expected by huge cohorts I guess? Well, I still do. I guess tech should be avoided then.

I won't say "What's wrong with that" but I will point out that Twitch has in place safe modes for "Mature" streams that isn't much of a gate keeper, but neither is the little M that pops up in the corner of mature TV programs. The site also doesn't seem to do anything to intentionally market directly to children. Not that it doesn't attract kids, but so does TV. I don't think it's unfair to expect parents to keep an eye on what their kids watch.

Not saying it’s not there, but I’ve never seen anything like soft core porn on twitch. What’s wrong with me that the algorithm thinks I don’t like naked people?

I've seen one or two adult movie stars streaming on Twitch and they're known for being relatively polite. I mean, they don't need to act out for attention the way pro streamers do.

Yeah, there are a handful of (some retired) adult movie stars that stream on the site. I'm not sure how to distinguish the traditional adult movie stars from OnlyFans people in regards to this post, but for the "traditional" stars, they all seem super cheerful and friendly, and other than wearing tight-fitting shirts I don't know that any of them have done anything lewd at all. From what I can tell, they are good members of the overall Twitch community, same as tons of other people.

Why’d they allow porn on Twitch? Isn’t that game streaming?

We have onlyfans for the other stuff, do they need to mix it?

> I also really dislike the encouragement of parasocial relationships on the platform

Isn't that the entire value proposition of twitch?

This all sounds great for the softcore porn market though

Twitch walked so that onlyfans could run.

not even a joke. a lot of OF performers use their twitch as a marketting arm.

My main problem is that frankly youtube streaming is technically better, I hoped twitch catches up but I still can't just pause a stream and "catch up" like on YT, watching archive of currently playing channel (say esport event) is also royal PITA.

On YT I can tune hour late, then just jump back to match that happened, watch it, skip the intermissions and catch up, on twitch that's much more complicated.

> - Softcore porn allowed on the platform. Literally, girls doing ass up squats in front of the camera for a $3 donation. You cannot avoid this because its part of the platforms "culture" and even your favorite streamers will one day end up watching a clip or something on their stream. This also breeds incels and very toxic chatters.

I dunno, I never got suggested one of those during at least last few years. If I scroll for like 3 screens I get some vtubers but that's about it. I think ability to filter out by stream tags would entirely solve the problem

> - Ads. Twitch is fighting against ad-blockers. Fine by me, I can bare ads, but what I cannot do is bear 5 ads in a row every 30 minutes. This has gotten a lot worse lately. It is annoying and disruptive to the user experience, and thankfully there are streamers who disable them altogether as they can sustain themselves through subscriptions and donations from chatters.

On top of that they often play in absolutely wrong moments. Like getting ad immediately after clicking a new stream, before you even know whether you want to watch them or not.

The comments and community feeling in Youtube streaming sucks. Ludwig who made the switch a year ago from Twitch to Youtube said that was his biggest nuisance with Youtube, and I agree. I stopped watching him because of it since there's more fun to be had on Twitch.

Twitch is more like a bunch of monkeys which is fun and builds hype. Youtube is too serious and the chat is too slow for the streamer to properly interact with.

Something about Twitch chat is magical, even though it is commonly just walls of copypasta, it feels like participating in a real, authentic audience. Often times it is more entertaining that the stream itself, just like on HN you would rush to the comments before even reading TFA to see what other people are saying.

I can't quite pinpoint why YouTube doesn't have the same feeling though.

YouTube's UI doesn't facilitate it. YT chat is for textual chat, but clunky and staid, which is a very Google thing to implement.

Twitch chat is for emoting, especially in ways that please the streamer. Trying to actually chat with someone on an active Twitch channel is futile.

It feels like teen chat rooms on AOL with more flair. Except I don’t remember the hordes ganging up on and harassing people on AOL.

There was plenty of ganging up on AOL too, if you were even a little bit outside what "mainstream AOL" people thought was acceptable.

You could just leave the chat or sign off. Hard to do when some people are all about doxing and swatting nowadays.

Well for one thing Twitch has the advantage of being primarily gaming-focused, whereas YouTube is at its core a generic video host with no particular focus.

But YouTube has also completely destroyed their entire concept of having a "YouTube community" over the years. There might be something of various creator communities in various niches, but the heavy censorship, mess of a comments section that does everything in its power to halt any form of conversation, leaving only spam and idiots in most comment sections, etc. left it with nothing of a community, or any real creator/consumer dynamic.

YouTube no longer has private nor direct messages, so if people want to communicate they have to do it on another platform. It's also just a bit of a mess with the transition from the original idea of "everyone has an anonymous handle" to "every must have their Google+ profile linked and use their real name" to "Google+ is dead and now some people have silly handles and some people are real people." The whole thing adds up to make for a place with no coherent community.

The YouTube comment algorithm actually totally changed around 2019 because of everyone complaining about it. It's now very strongly focused on "wholesomeness", so if anything it's not stupid enough.

The only wholesomeness I see are kind-worded scam messages. I can't say I feel sad for youtube. They wanted it to turn out this way.

Something else streamers mention is that on twitch there are way better/more moderating features than on youtube. Shared ban lists, automod bots, annottions like "likely avoiding ban" etcpp

It's been forever since I've looked at comments on either site, but hearing that youtube comments are "too serious" caused a double take. Hasn't that site always been known for the toxicity of its comments?

Video ads are important for reminding you to change your eye focus to a different distance, stretch your legs, and go pee

The most infuriating thing about Twitch ads is that it insists on running a thirty-second pre-roll ad. This is a platform where the focus is on liveness and immediacy, where you're very likely to open a stream because what's happening right this moment is interesting (e.g. a speedrunner on world-record pace), and then that same platform forces you to miss out on that live moment.

Literally any other form of advertising would fit Twitch better than pre-roll ads. Even a shorter pre-roll ad would be better (and probably lead to better retention). Gating people for a whole half-minute from a live event like that implies, at least to me, a company that doesn't understand their own platform.

I just close it immediately when there is a preroll.

I'm sure it's been mentioned somewhere already, but the "plixltris/TwitchAdSolutions" repo on Github has a working blocker that switches the steam to an ad-free 480p version for in-stream ads. I think it can block the pre-roll ones somehow or reduce them because i hardly see any. Personally I use the Ublock script they have.

And PurpleTV is a modified Android Twitch app that is just like Youtube (Re)Vanced. Obviously use with caution, with an account you don't have any personal info linked to, because unlike YouTube you are forced to log in to the Twitch App. Pretty sure the Gitlab "twitchmod/orange-tv" repo is the official source.

Twitch has recently (within the past few months iirc) started giving streamers a lot more control over how and when ads are run. I don't know a ton of details, but it sounds like the streamer has some target [1] (like 3 minutes of ads per hour) and gets to choose exactly when those ads are displayed. If they meet that target, it disables Twitch's preroll and midroll ads entirely.

I exclusively watch speedrun streams, and from what I've seen it works great for those. No more preroll ads, and if the runner is paying attention to their ad schedule, they run a big block of ads for when they breaks to stretch/eat/use the restroom/etc, or during downtime like reset-heavy and cutscene-heavy earlygame sequences, so you don't miss anything.

It's a significantly better experience than the normal preroll ads and random/timed midroll ads, and from what I've heard it sounds like Twitch pays more to the streamers who use this system as well.

[1]: https://help.twitch.tv/s/article/ads-incentive-program-getti...

To countercomment:

- Softcore porn (I would not call it porn at all, search online for softcore porn and you get something completely different). You don't have to watch it and I never see it in my feeds, you have to actively search for it to find it. So I'm wondering how you notice it for it to be a problem? Yes; I'm calling you out.

- Ads: youtube has a LOT more ads, and a lot of twitch streamers don't do the ad program. So here too I'm not as convinced it's a problem, I definitely don't see many ads and usually if there are any the streamer is aware and takes a break or something so you don't miss much.

Anecdotally, I see it recommended a lot in my feed and I don’t search for it. I know not to go to “Just chatting” basically.

But this doesn’t prevent the other problem where streamers will watch those others on their stream.

I’m not that bothered about it but I think it might be a problem that it’s a part of twitch culture.

Ads are a problem because twitch is pushing them more, while slowly degrading the profitability of normal subs (eg no 70/30 split anymore). Regarding ads they also don't seem to understand their product, having an option to switch on ads which play uncontrollably (for the streamer) while also completely hiding the stream during the ad. Combined with no rewind feature this is a complete mess.

The big issue with ads is that only 'partners' are allowed to turn off pre-roll ads, and in order to become a partner you need meet certain requirements all based around getting people to watch your channel, which is difficult because most people (me include) will not sit through ads in order to watch some small streamer for a minute or two to see if they are interesting. Twitch seems to actively work against small streamers trying to grow their brand.

The UX for Twitch is downright awful right now. Browsing through multiple streamers almost always results in an ad being played for every streamer you check out, it's so bizarre, they actively punish you for trying out new streamers unless they're very small who don't have ads yet.

The workaround is to 'pre-browse' by opening multiple streamers in new tabs, muting their tabs and then checking them out a minute or two later, but that's quite a PITA.

Twitch could disappear today and I don't think I'd care, I couldn't say the same thing five or ten years ago.

They did eventually ban gambling streams, so who knows. The trouble, I think, is defining what qualifies as "software porn". Do you start policing what streamers are wearing? Are some activities, like squatting, disallowed? And any definition will probably court controversy, especially because it will overwhelmingly affect female streamers.

They could add a general ban of "intentional sexual behavior", which is vague enough to apply common sense and affect just the people who were meant to be affected. Similar to how a judge can use common sense to interpret vague terms in the law.

Why is it legal for websites to give porn to children, but B&M stores are required to check ID?

Given that you have an issue with ads, how do you respond to the fact you can pay $5/month to subscribe to a specific streamer to avoid all ads? Would you prefer if there was a platform-level subscription level which allows you to avoid all platform-driven ads across all channels, similar to YouTube Premium, for example?

Isn't that what "Twitch Turbo" is?

They already have a platform-level subscription. It's Twitch Turbo and costs ~$10/month. Removes all ads on the site. I don't think creators get any portion of it like with YouTube Premium though.

IIRC I heard years ago that Turbo "pays" the streamer for the non-watched ads which have been removed for the Turbo user, i.e. fractions of a cent, i.e. nothing. All it does is paying Twitch for doing fuck-all.

So Turbo pays the streamer the same amount per stream as the non-Turbo ad supported account? That sounds good and fair. I don't know why you would expect otherwise.

Heck, Turbo users probably watch more videos and so are better customers even at the same rate.

Rebroadcasting live video to potentially hundreds of thousands of people at once is hardly "fuck-all", that shit costs a lot of money to do well.

I thought they removed turbo for everyone outside Canada, or did they bring it back at some point?

I'm in the US and have been subscribed to Turbo for over a year now, even though I rarely watch Twitch. I just keep my subscription so I don't have to be bothered with ads when I want to turn on a Twitch stream on my Apple TV.

There is Twitch Turbo, which as far as I know does not benefit creators, or does so on a very nominal level. I subscribe to individual streamers that I wish to see continue streaming. I do not care about supporting Twitch, so yes - your argument is valid that money can solve my issue, but then I have to choose between supporting a creator or supporting Twitch.

I play ARPG games specifically, so I follow a lot of creators for those specific games, and when new releases hit - I will most definitely be trying to keep up with the latest strategies and insights. And I will get that information either way, but does that mean I also have to miss interesting moments because I am not willing to support Twitch directly?

All I'm saying is that ads have gotten a lot worse lately and it is extremely noticeable.

> There is Twitch Turbo, which as far as I know does not benefit creators

Twitch Turbo is supposed to benefit the creator the same way an ad would support them. Meaning it would count the ad as shown, but not show it to the viewer. Though, payment for ads are scammingly low for the creators. A sub will in most cases give more support.

> All I'm saying is that ads have gotten a lot worse lately and it is extremely noticeable.

Rumors goes, Amazon demands more money.

I never understood this model. Can you imagine how much it would cost to support all my favorite streamers? I don’t even follow many. But let’s say even just 5 and now we’re looking at 25$ / month.

Obviously I must be out of the loop if this currently works… but I don’t get it.

Turbo is nice, but should be just a little cheaper. YT Premium Lite is 7 euros.

The ads are insufferable. Hate how they really want to shove it down your throat even when you back out of a stream and pick another.

Worse it’s badly implemented. Countless times I’m watching the same ads multiple times within 10-15 mins.

Only saving grace on AppleTV if you back out you can wait it out while the stream is still highlighted, with the sound off, then enter the stream again.

I can recommend the unwanted twitch extension which allows a user to hide selected channels, entire games and tags. https://github.com/kwaschny/unwanted-twitch

I see less, possibly zero, fascist fan streamers when I look at Twitch.

Definitely not the case with Youtube.

I've never seen software porn on Twitch, I have probably watched more Twitch than most people. Their internal model of me must have given up.

> but what I cannot do is bear 5 ads in a row every 30 minutes

This is basically how Television used to operate. I think it was more like, 4 ads every 15 minutes. So way more actually.

They had carte blanche and they literally made a worse version of the television model. The staff don't get paid for their work, and we have to watch more ads that watch us.

Yeah and we ditched TV for YouTube and Twitch!

It's definitely about time for a new long form media company.. maybe one that doesn't sell itself to Microsoft

Alternate Player for Twitch.tv: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/alternate-player-f...

It can't skip ads completely, but it will prevent showing them.

5 ads every 1/2 hour? Stay away from tv you see 5 ads every 10 minutes.

Well, I haven't watched TV for over 20 years now, so I wouldn't know.

Anyway, the issue is that it is a live streaming platform.

In comparison to last 5 years, in the last year I can recall at least 5 times where I missed significant moments because the platform automatically ran ads.

> Stay away from tv you see 5 ads every 10 minutes.

Funnily that's exactly what everyone is doing[1].

[1] https://www.fiercevideo.com/video/linear-video-subscriber-lo...

Have you seen YouTube ads lately? When I stream a video to the "app" on my TV, I get 1 minute 30 seconds of ads at the beginning. Then about 1:20 into the video, I get 2 more 30 second ads. Then at 3:00 into the video, 2 more ads come on. Sometimes there are more ads than content. Ads come on literally less than 5 minute intervals, and the part that really drives me nuts is that it's always the same 2 ads over and over. There are even ads that are 5 minutes long. So far at least, I haven't seen a 5 minute ad that I can't skip.

Don't get me started on youtube ads. Youtube will punish you for logging in with more ads. They punish you for watching popular content. I can accept 5 ads totaling 2 minutes every half hour

This is what turned me off to YT Music. When they migrated users from Play Music I tried it once, it took 10 clicks (including the dismissal of two interstitial modal ads) to get to a song that I own, and I still had to wait through a minute of ads to listen to it. I can't remove the app from my phone, but I haven't opened it in the 2-1/2 years since.

I did for like 15+ years now ? It's terrible medium

The ads can be interesting they tell me about the culture of the local tv channel city. There are many behind the scene messages and things you pick up on. Understanding who is advertising can tell you who the show is written for or why they made certain choices and that can change as a show evolves.

You get cultural references more memorable than the shows they prop up. Where's the beef still rings strong, wwwhat's up is a universal greeting.

Advertising can bring feelings of connectiveness to people. A familiar verizon song at Christmas makes life a little bit less sad for a solider in the battle field or a parent who is spending Christmas alone.

Advertising in many ways is more dynamic, interesting and long lasting compared to the shows they put on. Watching shows without them hollows out the experience.

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