At the start of the year, Angela Hession, Twitch’s vice-president of Trust and Safety, promised the company would implement an improved reporting and appeals process, and now it’s doing exactly that. Starting next week, the company will begin rolling out an updated reporting tool it says features a more intuitive design for flagging bad behavior. Among other enhancements, it includes new search functionality that Twitch says will make it easier to specify the exact reason you want to report someone. It will now also include menus tailored to the content you’re reporting.
The company anticipates it will take a few months to roll out its new reporting tool to all Twitch users. “We know that sounds like a while,” said Twitch. “But the reporting tool touches every single Twitch user across the globe, so we’re taking a thoughtful approach to make sure it all goes safely and smoothly for our global community.” The updated tool will be first available through Twitch’s web client, with it slated to come to its mobile app at a later date.
Twitch is also launching a new one appeals portal, and that’s available to use starting today. The tool features some behind-the-scenes upgrades Twitch promises will allow its Trust and Safety team to more quickly work through appeals. As a Twitch user, the company says the updated portal will provide visibility into what enforcement actions you can appeal, as well as to see the status and outcome of any ongoing and previous requests.
Taken together, Twitch says today’s updates will allow it to more quickly and consistently enforce its safety policies. At the same time, the company believes they will provide it with better insights into emerging patterns of behavior on its platform. Twitch doesn’t mention the events of 2021 in its latest blog post, but last year was a challenging one for the company. The summer’s hate raids left many streamers with the feeling that they weren’t safe on the platform. Twitch promised to do better and the new tools it’s introducing today represent an important milestone in those efforts.
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