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Comment by mrguyorama | Hacker News Reader

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"

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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?

Twitch walked so that onlyfans could run.

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

> 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

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.

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