Amazon's Famous Livestreaming Platform Takes Steps To Counter Child Predation

  • Amazon.Com, Inc AMZN, owned popular video game live-streaming site Twitch announced changes on the platform to increase safety for its young users after drawing criticism over child predation.
  • Twitch introduced mandatory phone verification requirements and fortified technology to catch and terminate accounts belonging to people under 13, among other measures, Bloomberg reports.
  • In September, Bloomberg News published a report describing rampant child predation on Twitch and the platform’s insufficient moderation tools.
  • Also Read: Yet Another Experimental Feature By Amazon After Amazon Glow, Amazon Scout and Amazon Care To Be Pulled Down
  • In a subsequent analysis over the past month, Bloomberg has discovered new predatory accounts and more children targets.
  • In the wake of the report, the U.K. internet regulator Ofcom contacted Twitch to discuss its poor protections for children on the platform.
  • Twitch still lags behind competitors regarding age verification and barriers to live-streaming for kids. 
  • Twitch will now require at least one phone verification before live-streaming, which it says will help block children who previously had been suspended for streaming while underage from creating new accounts.
  • Twitch updated default privacy settings for its direct messaging feature, Whispers, and blocked the ability to use specific search terms to find content on the platform.
  • Twitch also acquired Spirit AI, which works with language processing to sift through online chat features and will help build tools to detect harms written in text on Twitch. 
  • Price Action: AMZN shares traded higher by 0.58% at $93.74 on the last check Wednesday.
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