Twitch rolls back nudity guideline changes for VRChat following backlash

Twitch has announced it’s rolling back some of its nudity guidelines, just days after it changed them to include VRChat streams and issued bans that led to widespread confusion and uproar.

Twitch originally updated its guidelines at the end of 2023 to enforce strict attire policies, which meant streamers of all varieties dressing with a degree of coverage. If not, they ran the risk of being considered wearing “inappropriate attire,” breaking terms of service, and potentially facing a ban.

However, in June, VRChat streamers were left baffled and hit back at Twitch after many were suddenly hit with related bans. Despite being recognized as “in-game virtual reality models” and not prohibited under the same Nudity and Attire guidelines for Twitch.

Twitch initially responded that it had changed policy to include VRChat streamers, but following feedback, announced a rollback of the rule changes for VRChat avatars and removed the bans.

Twitch posted on X (formerly Twitter) repealing the changes to VRChat but notes how the policy still applies to VTubers:

“Effective today, we are rolling back the change to the enforcement guidelines. Any strikes due to this change will be deprecated. That said, as stated in our policy, our attire policy guidelines still apply to Vtubers, but it does not apply to characters in games such as VRChat.”

📢 We made a change to our enforcement guidelines recently regarding the application of our attire policy to VRChat streams.

We received a lot of feedback from the VRChat community about the confusion this has caused, especially since it was not accompanied by a change to our… https://t.co/qlubRCXvzF

— Twitch Support (@TwitchSupport) June 8, 2024

VRChat has created a virtual reality social experience game where players can do virtually anything while connecting with people worldwide.

They have been able to customize their avatars with almost any attire imaginable. Despite this, as in-game nudity is still explicitly against VRChat’s terms of service, its guidelines have stated: “This content must still comply with our policy on Nudity and Sexual Content in Embedded Media and Games.”

VRChat

With this rollback, steamers can wear whatever they want, within reason, while streaming VRChat on Twitch.

They have also been made not responsible for the attire of other players’ avatars that may appear in their streams unless it goes against the “explicit content” terms of service of the streaming platform.