Starting next week, Twitch for iOS is adding over 350 new brands related to gender, sexual orientation, race, nationality, ability, mental health, and more.
According to the company I amIn a blog post, The new tags list includes transsexuals, lions, the disabled, veterans, and Vtuber, among many others. Twitch says it will also remove references to “ally” from the LGBTQIA + tag.
The company says these new labels won’t change how the labels work and are “completely optional. They simply give the creators more options.”
In the blog post, Twitch shares a little more about why the company added these tags and why now:
When we launched Tags in 2018, we did so to boost discovery, to help creators describe their content and to help viewers find the streams they care about. We intentionally designed this system for content creators to be able to describe what they are broadcasting, not who they are or what they stand for. We’ve maintained that distinction since that time, and we were wrong.
(…) The exception to the initial design was the LGBTQIA + brand, which started as an experiment a few years ago and has continued based on very positive feedback from the community.
Twitch says it has partnered with several independent third-party organizations such as GLAAD, The Trevor Project, AbleGamers, SpecialEffect and other experts who have focused on advancing underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, LGBTQIA +, the disabled, marginalized communities and, finally, members Twitch community for their feedback.
On May 26th, the Twitch team will live on live / twitch to talk more about the signs and address questions users may have.
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