Over at New World Notes, Hamlet Au has posted : Twitch Bans Second Life as Adult-Only Because Twitch Understands How Second Life Actually Works. I disagree, strongly. Now before we get into this, I want to ask people to not abuse Hamlet (or me) for having differing opinions. I was most disappointed when I returned from my holiday to read a blog post from Canary Beck entitled “Please Stop The Social Shaming Of Hamlet Au“. I fully support Hamlet’s right to an opinion, no matter how much it differs from mine.
The Second Life community can at times get heated, but generally, they are far more tame than other communities I’ve been part of. Hamlet and myself should be free to disagree without name calling, insults, or twitter abuse.
Now on with the show. I disagree with Hamlet on the Twitch issue, rather strongly and one of the main reasons I disagree with him is that the idea that something can unexpectedly happen in Second Life whilst streaming is something that can also happen when humans are involved, and yet Twitch aren’t silly enough to decree that no humans should be on screen in case something unexpectedly adult appears on the screen.
One of the most surprising points Hamlet makes in his post is :
Twitch, which actually has former Linden Lab staff working for it, knows how Second Life actually works.
How on earth can a company with a former Linden working for them be so wide of the mark when it comes to how Second Life works? Yes, there’s adult content in Second Life, but there’s a hell of a lot of non-adult content and when this furore blew up initially, it was over a stream where someone was scripting, not stripping.
Look, it’s possible to roam Second Life without seeing anything overtly adult for hours on end. Can adult content appear unexpectedly? Absolutely, but Twitch’s rules of conduct make allowances for the unexpected :
Sexually explicit acts or content: Nudity can’t be a core focus or feature of the game in question and modded nudity is disallowed in its entirety. Occurrences in game are okay, so long as you do not make them a primary focus of your stream and only spend as much time as needed in the area to progress the game’s story.
I’ve stated many times on this blog that I’ve been to an adult region whereby I’ve witnessed no overtly adult content. Having an adult rating on your region does not mean your region is full of porn and it gets tiresome seeing this myth about Second Life being about nothing other than adult activity repeated time and again.
I’ve seen some images from the official Twitch blog post that suggest that people on screen can accidentally end up in situations that are not exactly as expected. I saw a picture of one female who for some reason had completely forgot that she had writing on her face and cleavage. I mean, Twitch is about streaming games or creating music, right? The poor girl must have been shocked when she discovered people were looking at her cleavage rather than the game.
Another poor girl must have dropped her controller, how else can you explain the fact that she was in tight pants, bent over, arse in the air in front of the camera, it’s in the game, right?
However one thing that is definitely missing from this discussion has been what Linden Lab’s policy is with regards to streaming Second Life. I suspect that any streams of Second Life should be consistent with The Snapshot and Machinima policy, which states that for Machinima you should have permission from everyone in the scene to broadcast the scene.
Users following that policy really should not be causing any real offence on Twitch. Twitch is a platform that allows streaming of Grand Theft Auto V, which features some pretty controversial content to say the least. I’m not saying Twitch should prohibit GTA V, there’s a mature stream option, but it’s an option that really should be applied to Second Life too.
Twitch’s policy remains inconsistent, incomprehensible, insulting to Second Life and far wide of the mark. They really do not understand how Second Life works when they apply a blanket ban such as this. Twitch have got this wrong.
Whether you agree with me, or agree with Hamlet, let’s keep this civil folks.
I agree, they have it wrong. Banning a channel of content (e.g. Second Life) instead of rejecting individual streams, is probably more of an expedient decision however, as opposed to a decision based on an in depth understanding of Second Life, or lack thereof. YouTube similarly doesn’t allow gratuitous nudity and sexual content, but monitoring uploaded static videos must be a relatively easier proposition. Monitoring a live streaming service must be an administrative nightmare, so they’re taking the easy route. Twitch is playing it safe – probably a little ‘over-safe’ – but then they have their brand to protect – which is their call. The irony here is that simulated extreme violence of all sorts seems to be totally ok, while simulated skin is not. That’s a much bigger issue, of course. I suppose that’s consistent with typical US approaches to censorship, even in liberal California. Twitch is based in San Francisco after all – so in that respect this is understandable from their perspective, as much as those who use Twitch to stream SL content would wish otherwise.