Last week Twitch announced the addition of over 350 new tags for streamers in an attempt to make the community more inclusive. These tags range from a variety of terms such as transgender, Black, disabled, veteran and Vtuber. References to “ally” from the LGBTQIA+ tag will also be removed to have its own separate tag.
The tags feature was added to the platform in 2018 as a way to filter results when looking for a stream, and creators are able to include up to five tags per stream to specify their content. But many in the community were wondering why certain tags were not included.
The platform acknowledged this, saying that “we intentionally designed that system for creators to be able to describe what they were streaming, not who they were or what they stood for. We have maintained this distinction since that time, and we were wrong.”
Nonprofits such as TransLifeline created an outside tool called Peer2Peer that allows viewers to search for content under identity related tags. Viewers can look up tags based on race/ethnicity, gender, mental health and more.
“We’d like to thank the trans community for originally requesting the ‘transgender’ tag, and for their passion and persistence in the pursuit of request. This has been one of the most popular requests we heard, and the simple truth is that we should have done this sooner,” Twitch said in their announcement.
With the addition of the tags on the actual platform itself, this will allow streamers and viewers to create a safe space within their specific communities. Twitch had previously cracked down on hateful conduct and harassment in 2020, but this addition will hopefully provide tools in which members of the community can find inclusive spaces and be proud and open about their identity.