Twitch Will Give Streamers Control Over Viewer Access
In its latest episode of Patch Notes, Twitch announced that it would soon allow streamers to block banned users from watching streams. The feature is expected to be available on users’ dashboards in mid to late September. Previously, streamers could only restrict chat participation, but now they access a more comprehensive solution against disruptive users.
“The way that (the new feature) will work is if you ban somebody and they’re currently watching then the steam playback will be interrupted for them so that they immediately lose the ability to view the stream. Then if you go offline then stream again, they won’t be able to watch your subsequent streams either until you choose to unban them,” explained Trevor Fisher, Twitch’s senior product manager of community health.
Source: Twitch
The upcoming viewing block on Twitch will be integrated with the platform’s block feature by default. This means that a blocked (as opposed to banned) user will also be prevented from watching the user’s stream.
The new option, however, has its limitations. While the feature intends to tackle harassment, it is not applicable to logged-out users. So if someone is banned, Users can simply log out of the service or use their browser’s incognito window to continue watching a stream if they are blocked. Twitch is also yet to expand the feature’s capabilities to VODs, highlights, and clips.
“We know that this is an area where people want us to do more, and it’s just been chipping off kind of one part of the problem at a time,” said Fisher.
