Ofcom says Twitch new labeling rules properly flag gambling channels

Since passing a new set of guidelines in June 2023, Twitch has been struggling to completely keep under control the number of streams that continue to promote gambling products or associate themselves with gambling products, including skin betting.

However, qualms that the company may have been dropping the ball may be unfounded as a new study by Ofcom, a government body with wide-ranging powers across the television, radio, telecoms, and postal sectors, has found evidence to the contrary.

Twitch content is now more accurately labeled for mature, gambling content

Ofcom believes that the labelling of content has gone much according to plan. To help it better understand whether this much is true, Ofcom monitored 3m streams between March and December 2023, concluding that the new guidelines have taken place.

Before the guidelines were implemented, Ofcom said that 48% of mature gaming streams were accurately labelled and only 65% of gambling streams were labelled as mature.

Following the changes, however, gambling stream and content labelling as "mature" saw a big increase, indicating that the measure has taken root. Content creators did not change their habits and advertising practices, nor the content they produce, Ofcom noted.

However, they have been sticking to the newly introduced content classification labelling (CCLs) introduced by the Amazon-owned streaming giant. Ofcom observed the efficiency of the new measures, and said:

"We found that more specific content labels, coupled with penalties for inaccurate labelling, led content creators to positively change their behaviour in terms of how accurately they labelled content."

The measure does not only help resolve the popularity of illegal gambling streams, but it also further enhances Twitch’s ability to display age-appropriate content. Consumers were much better informed about what the content they were about to engage in was.

Twitch has been trying to find a balance between overreaching content creators’ efforts and ensuring that they maintain a rigorous standard.

Twitch’s gambling throes are likely to continue

The most recent apple of discord proved the so-called illegal gambling streams featuring websites that are not licensed in the United States primarily.

This issue led to an exodus of several prominent streamers from the platform, including Trainwreck and xQc who moved to rival company Kick, and passed more liberal gambling stream rules, allowing consumers to choose for themselves if they want to see gambling content.

Twitch followed a similar plan several months back, but it has lost several of its most popular content creators because of the status of gambling streams, nevertheless.

Image credit: Twitch