Twitch Temporarily Stops Boost Train Feature After A User Found Promoting Pornographic Content

Twitch stops promoting pornographic content. (photo: doc. unsplash)

JAKARTA - Twitch has paused its Boost Train feature, which they launched last month. This feature allows advertisers to promote their content for a fee. However, some accounts have made streaming videos or porn movies. The pornographic video or film may appear on the user's homepage labeled "promoted by the streamer community" and enter the NSFW thumbnail (via Kotaku).

Several Twitter and Reddit users (NSFW link) shared screenshots of pornographic thumbnails appearing on the front with a message or ad narration prompting, "The live channel we think you'll like".

Thumbnails show that the stream is getting there thanks to an experimental feature that Twitch first announced last year. This feature has changed since it was first introduced. However, the basic concept remains the same, namely, users can spend money to get streaming in front of people's eyes. In this case, it just so happens that there is content that is disallowed on Twitch.

Unless the Twitch user promoting the stream explicitly tries to turn the feature off, or get the creator in trouble, it's hard to say it was money well spent.

Three accounts have been featured or appear in the most popular screenshots of pornographic content appearing on users' homepages. All of those accounts have now been suspended for violating Twitch's Community Guidelines.

"Twitch has decided to pause Boost Train due to several safety considerations that emerged through experimentation," Twitch's head of communications, Sam Faught, said in a statement emailed to The Verge.

He added that Twitch will "share additional updates with our community around new features to help improve discoverability, if available."

Twitch did not respond to this and said the experiment had been discontinued due to the reports. Twitch's rules do prohibit "sexually explicit nudity or activity," and thumbnails containing pornographic content.

After a slew of complaints, Twitch has reportedly only replied with a rehash that the feature is temporarily discontinued.