Twitch to Crack Down on Harmful Deepfake Videos

Video streaming platform Twitch has announced that it will crack down on video content created using Deepfake technology. Deepfake technology is often used for “face swapping” in which perpetrators synthesize the faces of celebrities onto the bodies of others to generate new videos. In January of this year, a face-swapping incident on Twitch occurred in which the faces of several streamers, QTCinderella, Pokimane, and Maya Higa, were “merged” onto the body of a naked woman in a video.

Twitch has stated that it will no longer tolerate “synthetic non-consensual exploitative images” or synthetic NCEI. Its new platform policy stipulates that creating or sharing such content may result in an indefinite ban for first-time offenders. Even if NCEI is briefly or unintentionally displayed, it will be removed and enforced. Twitch will implement the aforementioned policy by the end of this month.