Twitch introduced a new eight-member council yesterday to advise on safety and health concerns for platform policies moving forward. But the group has already drawn a less than stellar reception on social media.
Since the announcement of Twitch’s Safety Advisory Council, numerous gaming endemic personalities have started to express some concerns about the group on social media, believing the council has the potential to do more harm than good.
“I’ll admit I’m skeptical of the Twitch Safety Advisory Council,” Asmongold said. “I hope it will make the platform better. I worry that it will either be a tool for ppl on the council to assert their personal agendas or that the ppl on it will end up getting blame for things they didn’t do.”
One of the primary concerns that’s being expressed is specifically in regard to the inclusion of full-time streamer and former competitive Heroes of the Storm player FerociouslySteph. While her activism certainly aims to protect the interest of marginalized groups, some of her views are radical in the eyes of experienced veterans of the industry.
Around the time of the advisory council announcement, Steph tweeted out about her belief that voice chats shouldn’t be allowed in competitive games—something she’s been vocal about in the past.
“Oooo yeah whole lot of people with cis-white-male voices thinking voice chat is critical to competitive games being competitive,” she tweeted. “Tell me more about how we’ll solve systemic misogyny and everything will be fine~ lol.”
Along with her post, an old clip of her talking about the topic of voice chat being an “unfair advantage” surfaced, which elicited strong responses from notable people.
“It seems like a big mistake for them to have her on the council,” Asmongold said. “From the clips and content I’ve seen, it will only serve to discredit the entire effort.”
Well-known CS:GO announcer and esports advocate Thorin took Asmon’s comments one step further in a tweet of his own, calling Steph “one of those fucking clowns.” He thinks the makeup of the council’s membership is telling of Twitch’s priorities in a negative way.
“Twitch council is essentially a new group of commissars to help shut down gaming culture,” he tweeted. “Meanwhile, the safety of fans who see a spoofed top CS:GO stream telling them to click phishing links remains greeted with silence. Your actions speak loud and clear.”
Obviously, Twitch’s intent was to make a diverse group of experts and endemic members for the council to make sure that executives were exposed to a wide array of viewpoints while making decisions. But it didn’t even take a full 24 hours for strong reactions to shine a bad light on the group, leading Steph to feel like she needed to defend herself.
“Sure are a lot of people trying to make me and my arguments look bad rn,” Steph said. “Clipping and retweeting my most frustrated takes. Perpetuating conclusions I’ve never made. Few people are being rational, most want to dogpile, most are being hateful. It’s a lot.”
Esports analyst and reporter Slasher didn’t give any truly provocative or strong opinions about the group out of the gate, but it didn’t take long for him to say what several other people were likely thinking.
“The Twitch Safety Advisory Council was announced a few hours ago and has already pissed off a bunch of streamers and portions of the competitive gaming community,” he wrote. “Off to a good start.”
Twitch hasn’t officially responded to any of the criticism regarding FerociouslySteph’s inclusion on the Safety Advisory Council—and it’s unclear if the platform will. Twitch’s announcement of the council has no information regarding when the group will start meeting or working with Twitch employees to help guide policymaking.
