Twitch Will Start Banning 'Waiting Room' Channels

It was recently revealed by Twitch Support that ‘waiting room’ channels will be banned going forward, under the regulations that rule them as ‘Impersonation’. The team said that elements such as stream title and channel bio will be considered when moderating such streams and that the ruling is mostly aimed at profiles re-using other creators’ content.

Stealing Revenue

In recent months, Twitch has seen a sharp rise in the number of ‘waiting room’ streams that will re-broadcast the content of larger streamers to a smaller audience. They’ll often pose as ‘waiting rooms’ in the sense that you can watch their content until the actual streamer goes live on the platform.

In the regulatory update, it was confirmed that reaction streams, even ones that see you react to another user’s live stream, won’t violate the policy. That’s because there’s still an element of active engagement and commentary.

Also, hosting a waiting room stream that’s on hold in anticipation of a new expansion or a ‘character release’, for example, will be fine.

Here’s what Twitch Support said on social media:

To help ensure we enforce accurately, we’ll look at different factors such as stream title and channel bio, as well as whether we’ve received a report from the channel being impersonated.

Our goal is to take action against streams that position themselves as “waiting rooms” – for example, channels that largely re-use other channels’ content without offering commentary or other creative content, and that pull views and potential revenue from the original channel owners.

Do you think this is a good rule change, or are you a fan of waiting room streams?

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