Twitch has recently disabled the live streaming feature for new accounts following an attack from trolls that flooded one section of the site with pornography, illegal content, and hateful imagery.
The move comes as Twitch’s team tries to stop bad actors from abusing its system and flouting rules around copyrighted and illegal video. A statement from Twitch’s support team sent out via Twitter specifies the “safety of our community is our top priority and we’re doing everything we can to restore all access as quickly as possible.”
The streaming service’s Artifact category was full all weekend by trolls, who reportedly first fled to the section as a way of joining in on a recent meme. Artifact, a card game developed by Valve, was recently named the least popular game on Twitch.
Twitch users, and the broader gaming community, have been dunking on the game’s failure for months, both before and after Valve announced it was taking time to redesign the title in late March. But this weekend that changed with a flood of new streams using the category’s low visibility to stream content violating Twitch’s policies.
Twitch’s statement acknowledged that they became aware of a number of accounts targeting the Artifact game directory over the weekend. Twitch’s team also recognized trolls were using the category to share content that grossly violates our terms of service. The majority of the accounts that shared and viewed content were automated.
Now, Twitch hasn’t say anything about when new users will be able to stream. The moderation team is currently working to remove content.
