The boycott adayofftwitch reaches one of its main objectives

At the beginning of this month, a campaign was implemented - a campaign designed to raise awareness of a new form of harassment targeted on Twitch s live broadcast platform: hate raids . Those who participated in the boycott of a day required better tools to help fight bad actors on the platform. At the time, bypass the prohibitions was far too simple because it was enough for an e-mail address to create an account (and it should not always be unique).

The boycott himself had a questionable impact on Twitch s results, but many hypothesized that the new buzz around the problem was what the boycott really wanted. And with the next deployment of a new policy, it seems that speculation sounds true.

Twitch will give all creators the ability to lock their discussion away from anyone whose account does not have a Verified phone number. A German Twitch Streamer was able to discover what this tool would look like:

to @tic Security options for cats are considerably extended.

Streamers will soon assume that the catchers need a phone number, depending on the age of the accounts / the time they follow. You can also define exceptions for VIP / MODS / SUB.

Fresh pic.twitter.com/zz8erabxay

• Dracon (@dracontv) September 26, 2021

A tool like this is almost exactly what were looking for those who were at the origin of the boycott adayofftwitch - it s not something that is imposed on all users, it s a feature that streamers can add to their tool belt. And as the phone numbers are much more difficult to produce than e-mail addresses, this should be a powerful step in the war against the escape of prohibitions. In addition, streamers can also configure items such as longtime viewers, even those without a phone number linked to their account, are not affected. The long-standing fans of a given streamer would not be affected, but new accounts created to escape a prohibition would be. Although the mission of making online spaces safer for marginalized groups is far from over, it is undoubtedly a major step forward.

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