In an upcoming update to Twitch moderation tools, broadcasters are finally getting more tools to combat toxicity with new changes to the banning and blocking features on the website.
On the latest episode of Twitch’s Patch Notes live show, community health senior product manager Trevor Fisher revealed that any time a streamer bans a viewer from their channel or blocks a user, those affected users will no longer be able to view the stream either. This feature will be added to all streamers across the platform this September and is an optional tool that can be toggled in settings.
If this option is toggled, viewers who are blocked or banned will immediately lose connection to that specific stream, even mid-broadcast. Unfortunately, the system isn’t completely fool-proof just yet, because blocked or banned users can still log out of that affected account and view the stream.
This also doesn’t block them from viewing VODs or clips yet, although Twitch is still looking at other possible expansions with the feature’s capabilities, including experimenting with IP bans—although they need to be careful with the various complications that could arise with such power.
In the meantime, however, hundreds of streamers across the platform were incredibly pleased with the new mod tools at their disposal. Some content creators were glad that Twitch had finally implemented more features catering to the “comfort and wellbeing” of its broadcasters, while others celebrated more control over any unruly viewers that would make their way to their streams.
“This is one of those ‘much harder to build than it seems like it should have been’ features, but I’m so thrilled we’re finally able to launch this,” Community health product lead Alison Huffman said. “Many thanks to the streamers who have taken the time to talk to me about this over the years—your voices helped this happen.”
Although it isn’t a complete IP ban, this should provide a significant inconvenience for those who are looking to troll and harass streamers. There will be those who do log out and continue to view streams or log onto other accounts, but for most broadcasters, this is a great step in the right direction in the fight against hate on arguably the biggest streaming platform in the world.
