In a statement, Twitch said that whilst it is a place “for people to express themselves and discuss the world around them”, from now on, any stream that includes discussions about war, religion, or “reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights, or immigration” needs to be labelled.
This is a way to shut down political discourse so it can be managed more centrally. We’re seeing it on YT, as well as FB. The goal is to effectively shut down any kind of “un-managed” discourse from emerging by effectively de-monetizing any kind of political news or information. The online news industry is literally collapsing and there seems to be a ‘collapsing towards corporate news only’ effort being made. Advertisers don’t want their brands next to “problematic” content; but this is a both-sidings of an issue, as if lgbtq+ rights are somehow contemporaneous with right-wing conspiracy bullshit. It goes more broadly to any socially good, motivated effort to educate people about their rights being equivocated with some of the worst aspect of human nature we see being promoted from right-wing sources.
I think we all as a broader community have to address the question of costs of what it takes to get people to become politically informed versus the reality of bad faith actors, state agent propaganda, and misinformation.