Twitch’s solution to the “hot tub meta” on the platform has itself become the target of criticism after users found out that it was not available on promoted streams.
In a post to Twitter, one Twitch user claims that the “not interested” option could not be selected with streams boosted to the front page. Twitch recommended users to employ this alternative to help the algorithm filter out content they did not want to see.
The boost tool on Twitch is a community challenge where viewers pool together channel points to unlock rewards, including promoting a streamer’s channel to the front page. Regardless of the content being broadcast, there is no way for users to opt out of receiving the recommendation, according to the post.
When the post made its way to the subreddit LiveStreamFail, a poster pointed out that the option was also not available when navigating channels under the viewer count filter.
The use of this option was suggested by Twitch community production head, Marcus “djWHEAT” Graham when he was asked about the trend of hot tub streams on the platform.
Graham explained that when a user says they’re “not interested” in a stream or game, Twitch won’t continue to show that content to them on the homepage in an attempt to optimize the user’s experience.
In theory, this suggests that by selecting the option on a hot tub streamer’s channel, you will no longer be shown that type of content. The community quickly pushed back, however, arguing that because these streams were being broadcast under the IRL category, it would likely accidentally involve other IRL streams with vastly different content.