Even brief accidental glimpses of such images “will be removed and will result in enforcement,” the company writes. And if you intentionally promote, create or share deepfake porn, that’s grounds for an instaban: Doing so “may result in an indefinite suspension on the first offense.”
The company isn’t doing this on a whim — as BuzzFeed News and NBC News reported last month, Twitch recently had its own deepfake scandal. On Jan. 30, Twitch streamer Brandon “Atrioc” Ewing opened a browser window in the stream that allegedly showed the faces of popular female Twitch streamers, including Pokimane, QTCinderella, and Maya Higa, “grafted onto the bodies of naked women” , as BuzzFeed tells it. In a tearful stream of apology, Atrioc admitted visiting a deepfake site out of “morbid curiosity” about the images. “I just clicked a damn link at 2am and morale hasn’t caught up with me,” he said, vowing never to do anything like that again.
It’s not clear if Twitch took any enforcement action against Atrioc at the time — the company didn’t immediately respond to a fact-check request — but the new policy makes it clear that at least some action would be taken.
Twitch tends to crack down on accounts that share sexual images, even if they accidentally end up on a live stream. Atrioc himself was previously banned for displaying a flaccid penis on screen, according to streaming news site Win.gg, and Pokimane famously got a warning (no ban) after accidentally opening PornHub in a browser tab. But Twitch’s previous stance on deepfakes was extremely limited: it only mentioned them in the context of “sharing negatively manipulated or artistic content to abuse or demean another person.”
However, Twitch previously banned “broadcasting or uploading content containing images of real nudity” and threatened instabans for “sexual assault and exploitation.”
Originally, QTCinderella promised to sue the deepfake porn site that brought Atrioc to the world’s attention, but she’s since told NBC News that she’s given up: “Every attorney I’ve spoken to has essentially come to the conclusion that we don’t have a case; there’s no way to charge the man.