Twitch gets ahead of future controversial metas with new Enforcement Notes feature

Twitch has announced that it’s preemptively taking aim at future controversial “metas” on the platform with a new “enforcement notes” feature.

Since launch, Twitch streamers all over the world have influenced new trends across the platform. Sometimes they consist of new popular games like Among Us or Fall Guys, while other times they involve watching the latest TV show or reacting to a popular court case.

These trends, often called ‘metas,’ sometimes turn controversial and lead to the content getting banned from the platform.

Now, Twitch is taking a preemptive aim at any future controversial metas with the launch of a new Enforcement Notes feature.

“Today, we’re introducing Enforcement Notes – additional clarifications and examples within the Community Guidelines designed to make our rules easier to follow,” they said in a post on X.

“Going forward, we’ll use Enforcement Notes to outline how our rules apply to trends we see on Twitch. If a new ‘meta’ violates an existing policy, we see a spike in our data, or there is large community confusion and discussion on social media, we’ll look to publish an enforcement note under the relevant policy, clarifying what behaviors break our rules.”

Twitch has added a large number of these enforcement notes under various sections of the platform’s Community Guidelines and plans on adding more, should situations arise in the future.

One example of an Enforcement Note is listed under the Youth Safety section of the guidelines that explains you’ll get banned if you mention you’re under the age of 13 anywhere on Twitch.

“Stating you are below the age of 13 anywhere on Twitch, even if intended to be humorous, will result in your account being permanently deactivated in accordance with applicable laws,” it reads.

“Prohibited examples: Typing in chat, ‘haHAA I’m 12 by the way,’ or, ‘I’m using my dad’s account because I am 11.'”

This is just the latest update Twitch has made to the platform. In September, the company revealed they are going to begin including clips of offending content or chat messages when banning users on the site.