GROOMERS, ‘TITTIES’, & STREAMERS, OH MY!: TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF ANDROCENTRIC PLATFORM GOVERNANCE ON TWITCH

Abstract

Twitch is the largest social live-streaming platform in the Global North, and has historically been an important advertising and community hub for the gaming industry (Johnson & Woodcock, 2018). Twitch’s owner, Amazon, demands increasing growth and profit (Yin-Poole, 2024), so the platform must continue attracting new streamers, viewers, and advertisers. However, these new audiences may be at odds with Twitch’s core base of white, Asian, cisgender men (see Cote, 2020). This means many of Twitch’s policies and attempts at platform governance are often implemented inconsistently or in an ad-hoc manner, leading to greater confusion about what is and isn’t permissible on the platform (Winslow, 2024). Platform governance, also known as content moderation, harkens to how “platforms don’t make content, but they will make important choices about that content; what they will distribute and to whom, how they will connect users and broker their reactions, and what they will refuse” (Gillespie, 2018, pp. 254-255). As Twitch struggles to grow its audience but remains faithful to its core base, questions emerge as to who may be experiencing unfair moderation practices.