Twitch's new content tags are long overdue but they'll need back-up

With a bit more than a week to go before Pride Month kicks off on June 1, Twitch is launching a new collection of 350-plus content tags aimed at boosting the discoverability of marginalized voices.

It's a ridiculously late change for a tagging feature that was first introduced in 2018, but still a welcome one for content creators on the site who have long sought ways to increase their visibility on a crowded and noisy streaming platform. Before the coming update, streamers had just one rather broad tag — LGBTQIA+ — that. to many, fell far short.

"Next week, streamers will be able to select from over 350 new tags related to gender, sexual orientation, race, nationality, ability, mental health, and more," Twitch's Friday blog post reads. "The list of tags include transgender, Black, disabled, veteran, and Vtuber, among many others."

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The update will also, according to Twitch, "remove references to 'ally' from the LGBTQIA+ tag." In its place will be a new, standalone Ally tag. The coming flood of new tags won't change how the system works overall, it'll simply give streamers the ability to more specifically distinguish who they are and what they're about in a way that's easier for people to search.

As for why it took so long, Twitch noted that the tagging system was built to let creators "describe what they were streaming, not who they were or what they stood for." The post continues: "We have maintained this distinction since that time, and we were wrong."

The "we were wrong" admission is certainly welcome, but it feels toothless and hollow given the fact that the service, which was acquired by Amazon in 2014, has been supporting non-gaming streams and streamers since well before tags entered the picture in 2018. A comment like the one above would've made more sense alongside the site's launch in 2015 of the "Creative" category, or even the "IRL" category in 2017.

So yeah, it's great to see Twitch admitting that it was wrong about something, even if everyone knew as much years ago. But the late admission does make the statement feel a bit more toothless, like Twitch is taking the "safe" route now rather than moving years ago to more aggressively look out for its most harassed creators.

That's the real red flag here. The addition of all these new tags built around identity and personal views is great and welcome, but it's also something that could easily be weaponized against the creators it purports to boost. All of which is to say: This new addition really needs to be accompanied by a willingness (that the company hasn't always shown in the past) to respond quickly and decisively when problems spring up, and to do a better job of believing content creators' reports of bad behavior.

To Twitch's credit, the blog post does seem to acknowledge the history of shortcomings on that front. There's no repeat of the "we were wrong" sentiment, but a later section of the post titled "Keeping your stream safe" does come with an explicit warning that people who behave badly will face consequences.

As with any means of discovery, there are bad actors who may use the ability to find streams for malicious purposes. Users that utilize these tags as a means to harass those displaying the tags will be subject to enforcement of our Hateful Conduct and Harassment Policy. In order to help protect against malicious behavior, we recommend creators familiarize themselves with the available Moderation Tools, utilize moderators on their channels, and please report anyone who violates our Community Guidelines.

Actions, of course, speak far louder than words here. So it remains to be seen if this piece of the announcement is anything more than a standard disclaimer. But for any other weirdness tied up in this announcement, the addition of these new tags represents a big step forward. Hopefully it won't be the only one.