Amazon’s popular streaming platform allows you to hide shows about gambling, drug use and sexualized content.

As Eurogamer reported, the Content Classification Labels, which were introduced last year, allow streamers to flag if a broadcast is about gambling, for example. Thanks to Twitch’s changes, users will be able to hide these broadcasts, depending on their settings, or blur the small index images if they expect sexual content in the broadcast. “Our goal with these changes is to make it easier for you to have a Twitch experience that’s right for you, and to choose the communities you want to be a part of. We recognize that everyone’s viewing preferences are different, and you should have more control over what you see when you come to Twitch,” wrote Jeremy Forrester, Twitch’s vice president of community products, in a blog post.

He emphasized that broadcasters will have to specify exactly what their live broadcast is about, otherwise Twitch will do it in a way that makes it unremovable. This comes after years of criticism of Twitch, with many people calling for the site to update its policies on what constitutes sexual content. Broadcasts of people sitting in bath tubs in their underwear became popular, and this year there was a trend of breasts or buttocks being used as green screens. The gaming issues forced Twitch to tweak its policies in 2022.

According to StreamElements, users watched 1.64 billion hours of live broadcasts on Twitch in April. That’s down 7% from 1.77 billion in March. Daily hours were down 5% from 57 million to 55 million, but it’s been a downward trend every month this year. April’s poor performance was due to a lack of major releases and events. Fallout games didn’t even make it into the top 10 most watched categories, which included Just Chatting (228 million hours), Grand Theft Auto V (128 million), and live service titles (Fortnite, Counter-Strike 2, League of Legends). In the top 10 category, two titles saw an increase from March to April. Rust jumped 227% (19 million hours) with the Waves of Changes update to move up to #9 with 27 million hours, and Call of Duty: Warzone jumped 19% to #8 with 33 million hours.

May is sure to reverse the downward trend.

Source: Gamesindustry, Gamesindustry, Eurogamer, Twitch