Back yonder in the ancient year of 1994 (about 16 years prior to Twitch) – an organization was founded due to the release of Doom and Mortal Kombat: The ESRB. (To Skip the history click here)

With the launch of these games, in 1992 (Mortal Kombat and Night Trap) and 1993 (Doom), there was a congressional hearing held to discuss the “excessive violent or sexual” nature of video games. These hearings took place 7 Dec 1993 and 5 Mar 1994 with spokespeople from SEGA and Nintendo. They discussed the perceived impacts of violence in video games on children (which has been disproved here and here… and here).

The research papers and studies I have link discussed how video games do not contribute to poor social skills, desensitize players to real-life violence insight or influence real-life violence, it is a case of appeal to emotion a la “think about the children!/What about the children?” This was also during the time of the during a moral panic over gun violence, which was not as politized as it is now. Between August 1992 (The release of Mortal Kombat) and 16 Sept 1994 (the establishment of the ESRB), there was a very important crime bill being brought forward to congress at the time – The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. Gun violence was all over the news with the 101 California Street Shooting in San Francisco, California (1 Jul 1993); The Ruby Ridge Siege (21-31 Aug 1992); and the Waco Siege (28 Feb – 19 April 1993).

So, with the congressional hearings in 1993 and 1994, the ESRB was established 16 Sept 1994 and is a self-regulatory non-profit organization tasked with the assignment of ratings of video games, similar to the rating of TV and movie ratings based on two parameters – age and content.

You may be familiar with this chart: (Please note that “Early Childhood” was retired in 2018 due to “rarity of use”)

Here is another form of this chart, but includes what is and is not allowed in these ratings:

Between 2016-2020, I worked at a particular video game retailer that is now tanking from poor managerial practices and poor pay that had something to do with stocks a couple years back. Their policy is as such “Failure to follow the ESRB ratings and ID any one that appears under the age of 25 years old will result in a “first and final warning.” If the employee is caught violating the policy after such warning, the employee is subject to disciplinary actions, which may include termination of employment.” We had 2 or 3 different trainings for this stuff before we are stuck behind a register, the register itself will not let us sell the game until we enter a birth date – much like liquor stores.

The ESRB is what NSFW and 18+ communities call “self-policing” so we don’t get screwed for the content we release. We put up age-walls to make it harder for anyone under the “mature audience” to take in our content. There are issues with this as a whole across social media.

Which Brings us to Twitch

Twitch is, like other social media and live streaming services, where you can utilize this “age-wall” to keep those audiences out. It’s called the “Mature Content” filter.

The Terms of Service (ToS) for Twitch are relatively run of the mill. If you do sponsored stuff – disclose it per the FTC guidelines on transparent sponsorships; you cannot use Twitch’s donation tools to raise money for politicians; You agree not to violate the laws of where ever you live – so on and so forth.

ToS, Twitch and ESRB correlation?

Recently there has been a discourse on whether or not streamers should enable the Mature Content filter as it lessens your exposure to newer viewers. Aside from ESRB and content, here is why someone will utilize the Mature Content Filter:

• Swearing/Cursing/Lewdness
  • Some streamers curse like sailors. To self-police and make sure Little Timmy’s parents don’t flip out because Chad CODington said “fuck” and is telling his teammates they suck… Mature Content filter.
  • Some streamers also tend to make inappropriate jokes or have “crass” humor.
• Mature Themes in Games
  • I don’t just mean the stuff in the list up top. This could mean sexual themes, sure. But I can’t imagine Little Timmy’s mom would be comfortable with the themes in the Persona series (sexual abuse by a teacher, depression, suicide, extramarital affairs, scorned lovers, abuse at the hands of scientists (child labor?)… I could go on.
  • Sexual Themes: Anything from sex (not outright, of course, that’s against ToS) to sexual abuse to implied threesomes with the Goddess of Love a la God of War.
• 18/21+; Age of Majority conduct
  • In the age we are currently in, Colorado just passed psychdelics, marijuana is gaining legalization in various states and drinking is legal almost everywhere. If Little Timmy’s parents don’t want him watching someone taking a bong hit or drinking beer – well, Mature Content filter prevents that.
• Suggestive Looking streamers
  • As a sex worker myself, I know there are services that I can stream my more NSFW content on (click around my links, fam) – but I know a lot of amazing sex workers who are utilizing Twitch to make SFW content, which I absolutely love. Diversifying your content is so important in the social media space. But hot girls are perceived sexually regardless of the platform we are on. Many of us utilize the content filter to make it so there are less of a chance of people reporting our low cut shirts, short skirts or anything we wear.
• Miscellaneous things
  • Have you ever played some of the horror games lately? Body horror is something I have issues with myself as a fully grown late-20s woman who was alive and on the internet during the “Wild West” days of the mid-2000s listening to Blood on the Dance Floor and watched the Saw movies in my formative years for fun. Little Timmy does not need to see Resident Evil 7 and 8.

So while, yes, you may have a lower chance of being on the “front page” of Twitch, I think that there are several reasons not to listen to this advice of “not using the content filter.” There is more of a risk than reasonable. If you are not being the mature content filter – you have a higher chance of being thrown from the platform.

We can see that some “bans” can and have been over turned. Most of them were the “top performers” of Twitch. Here is a sampling of streamers (larger creators and a couple smaller ones) – this data was taken from StreamerBans, so it may not be 100% accurate.

If you are a heavy Twitch watcher, you may recognize this list – or if you frequent “streamer” TikTok, even.

Should people remove the mature content filter?

No. The risk is too great. It puts more “reactionary” streamers at risk as well as those perceived more “sexually.”

Over all, this discourse did bring up age verification (which comes up often) and how social media should not cater to the youngest parts of our society (you have to be a minimum of 13 to use Twitch – as with most other social medias). This would help relieve a lot of stress of these people who use the Mature Content filter.

What do you think about the mature content filter? Should social media platforms utilize age verification in one way or another?