Twitch adds badges for viewers watching without video, audio

Twitch has added a couple of new chat identity badges as a part of the platform’s celebration of Global Accessibility Awareness Day. 

Among other things, Twitch wrote in a blog post that it was making numerous “accessibility improvements” to the platform, like making it quicker and easier to navigate the website.

While Twitch didn’t say when it will implement it, the company said it’s adding a “chat badge that lets viewers self identify as audio- or video- only,” and it didn’t take long for the option to get activated.

The audio-only chat badge is primarily black and has a white outline of an eye that has a white slash through it. The sign makes it clear that the chatter is not watching the broadcast, just listening.

The video-only badge is colored similarly, but instead, it has the universal “mute” symbol of a speaker that has an “x” next to it, making it clear to other chatters that you cannot hear the contents of the broadcast you are watching.

These two badges take up the global badge slot in chat, meaning you can’t equip both badges at the same time as a joke.

You can change your badge by clicking the button on the left side of the “Send a message” bubble at the bottom of a channel’s chat. Left-clicking the “Chat Identity” button will open a pop-out in the chat that will give you chat badge options. Under the “Global Badge” section, you should see the audio-only and video-only options along with other global badge options, like the popular Prime Gaming badge.