Twitch bans use of ‘simp’, ‘incel’ and ‘virgin’ under harassment crackdown.

Twitch bans the word ‘simp’ as the video game streaming platform further stricken its community guidelines. The term simp refers to a man desperate for women’s attention. The word is recently seen gaining a place among the twitch community and became a favorite. As Twitch reconditions its harassment policy, the words ‘incel’ and ‘virgin’ also join the list of prohibited words.

With even more strict rules around comments that practice sexual harassment, the new policy will be effective from 22nd January 2021. Twitch now even has permission to ban streamers and commenters. The reason behind this sudden revision of policies is that Twitch was recently overburdened with complaints of sexual harassment within its community. Twitch has seen claims for a long time that there are no policies against such practices, and the platform does nothing to improve.

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However, in June, Twitch confirmed that a review of hateful conduct and harassment policies was underway. The platform was committed to making sure its users have a safer experience.

The words simp, incel, and virgin will not lead to a ban in all situations. Only when the words are used in a harassing manner, but that’s precisely how they come up more often.

“We will take action against the use of terms like ‘simp,’ ‘incel’ or ‘virgin’ specifically when they are being used to negatively refer to another person’s sexual practices. Using these terms on their own wouldn’t lead to enforcement, but we would take action if they were used repeatedly in a harassing manner,” said a Twitch spokesperson.

Twitch’s revised harassment policy lists several activities that are now prohibited on the platform. One such claim on the list states “making derogatory statements about another person’s perceived sexual practices or sexual morality.”

We do not have a blanket ban on the use of words like “simp” in casual banter, but will take action when words like this (amongst others) are used to harass and harm community members.

Check out our hateful conduct and harassment policy to learn more: https://t.co/rT9QAC6zcZ — Twitch (@Twitch) December 18, 2020

The details on how a ‘ban’ would work on Twitch shared by the company says it will not be a blanket ban, instead, the goal is to bring harassment under control. Analysts believe that since the ban policies are different than usual, they seem very difficult to implement. It could get challenging to ban the word ‘simp’ considering how often it is used.