Twitch art streamers banned en masse as “artistic nudity” gets misunderstood

Art streamers on Twitch are getting banned en masse after the platform allowed ‘artistic nudity’ in its guidelines, causing the site’s Art category to be overrun with explicit content.

On December 13, Twitch made big changes to its guidelines on nudity and sexual content, laying out several adjustments in a lengthy article.

In the article, Twitch clarified that ‘artistic depictions of nudity’ are now allowed, provided they have a Sexual Themes label.

On top of that, Twitch also allowed “fictionalized (drawn, animated, or sculpted) fully exposed female-presenting breasts and/or genitals or buttocks regardless of gender” with a label.

It wasn’t long before Twitch’s art category was filled with explicit streams, with users all over the net sounding off about the many sexualized anime, Vtuber, and even furry art broadcasts they were seeing on the platform.

Twitch/Marina

However, it seems as though quite a few of these streamers are getting hit with the ban hammer in the wake of Twitch’s new changes, causing chaos across social media.

Twitch art streamers banned en masse amid new TOS changes

Just a day after Twitch’s new changes went into effect, art streamers started sounding off that they’d been banned. A quick peek at the StreamerBans Twitter/X page shows that a slew of artists on the site have been suspended on Dec 14.

A few of these streamers claimed that they were drawing a nude character on stream when they got banned, despite allegedly correctly labeling their stream with ‘Sexual Themes.’

I did it, but also Twitch TOS says that you'll just get a warning and not get penalized even if you don't change the CCL

— Oro (@orobou) December 14, 2023

Other artists who were banned claimed that their suspension is only for three days.

JUST 3 DAYS ITS FINE GUYS

— Momote ももて 🩸 VYUGEN (@Momotexx) December 14, 2023

This latest ban wave has caused a fair amount of confusion among art streamers, who feel the new guidelines are still lacking clarity on what can or cannot be shown on the platform.

Twitch itself stated in its post that “There is a thriving artist community on Twitch, and this policy was overly punitive and did not reflect the impact of the content” — referring to its guidelines that previously prohibited such content.

For now, it’s unclear if Twitch will amend their guidelines or craft another statement addressing the confusion. For more Twitch news and info, keep it locked to Dexerto.