Twitch decided to advance its strategy to stop harassment on its social network by trolls with a renewed tool that feeds on machine learning to be able to more accurately identify those who evade the prohibitions.
It is the latest innovation from the company to combat the aggressions and hate speech that streamer chats are full of.
The tool is called “Suspicious User Detection” and allows suspicious users to be identified as “probable” or “possible” trolls who have circumvented the prohibitions on a transmission channel.
The software evaluates in real time the entire user profile, analyzes their past interactions and behaviors on the same channel and on others, the characteristics of the account and compares all this information with users who have effectively been banned because they were identified as troll.
Identification as “Probable troll” It won’t be posted in the chat, but streamers, mods, and channel admins will be warned.
According to Twitch, Suspicious User Detection it will be active by default, however content creators will be able to modify or deactivate the tool if they want to.
On the other hand, according to The VergeIf the streamers so wish, they can manually select the system and analyze only certain users.
As said Alison Huffman, Product Manager at Twitch, “The tool is inspired by the community’s request for a better way to prevent trolls from ruining the channel experience.
Twitch and advertising
A fact that underlies all the other things that Twitch can do with this tool.
In the world of advertising, for example, it could be used to show ads or subtle offers to specific users on those free channels that do not require a subscription.
Twitch was born with the name of Justin.Tv, a creation of Justin Kan from 2007 that was, strictly speaking, a channel broadcasting Kan’s life live 24 hours a day: what today is called “lifecasting”.
Over time, and after the purchase by Amazon and the change of name / brand, there are more and more channels of artists and influencers.
The topics are very varied, from music, films and interviews, to sports and classes of the most varied.
There’s also exclusive NBA content and broadcasts from world-renowned athletes.
The so-called “Travel & Outdoors” have also grown, people who film themselves while traveling.