A Parent’s Guide to Understanding Twitch

Online streaming is gradually becoming one of the ways people around the world interact with each other. While there are many social media platforms with streaming functionality, the most popular of them remain Twitch, accruing about 140 million active users.

Twitch has attracted a lot of audiences, including teens and young adults who love and play video games. Therefore, if you have children who like playing video games, it is highly likely that they are already on Twitch or toying with the idea of joining. 

Either way, you need to understand the platform if you are to protect your children from its dangers, which is what this guide does for you. 

What is Twitch?

Twitch is predominantly a gaming streaming platform. The social media platform allows people to watch other people (streamers and creators) play online video games. With the streaming functionality, Twitch also has a commentary feature for viewers and a chat system that allows streamers and watchers to communicate effectively. 

How Does it Work?

According to Twitch’s official website, Twitch is where people in their millions come to live, chat, interact and create entertainment together”. To use Twitch, users must create an account by providing personal details such as their names, email addresses, ages, and the like. 

After creating the account, they get to create a channel through which they stream their content. After channel creation, content creators on Twitch, also known as streamers, record and post the Livestream of their gaming activities on Twitch for people in their channel to watch. It works like YouTube, but instead of getting pre-recorded videos, as with YouTube, you get live videos. 

However, it is important to mention that Twitch allows other topics to be streamed apart from video games. Some channels stream discussions on topics outside video games, such as politics, current affairs, traveling, and even cooking. 

The Dangers of Twitch to Children

On the surface, Twitch seems like a harmless social media platform with zero danger to children. Coupled with the fact that it has an age restriction that prevents children less than 13 from joining the platform, it seems like a safe place for children to be. However, this is not the reality. 

Due to the type of content created on the platform and its mode of operation, the following are some of the risks associated with children using Twitch: 

Zero Moderation

Twitch has no moderating features to prevent users from using abusive, insulting, or racial slurs in the chat box of the live streams. Children get to see all of these abusive comments and words if they happen to be on the Livestream where this happens. 

Adult and Inappropriate Content

Not all games or discussions are appropriate for children, especially those under the age of consent. Therefore, they may stream games and videos or are audiences to discussions and conversations that are inappropriate for them. 

It gets worse because there is no way to filter out these types of content as everything is streamed live. This way, the inappropriate content can only be brought down after they have been broadcasted or streamed and children have been audiences to it. 

Unwanted Contact

There are numerous channels on Twitch, and as mentioned earlier, there are some unsafe or inappropriate ones for children. Due to the lack of safety settings that prevent children from joining these channels, there is the risk of total strangers reaching out and chatting with children through the channel chat box. 

Also, Twitch allows you to send private messages, known as Whispers, to anyone on the platform as long as you know their usernames. This further increases the possibility of strangers talking to children on the platform. 

What Parents Can Do

While Twitch does not have a full-on parental control setting that allows them to control what their children do on Twitch, there are other ways to mitigate these risks and dangers without denying your child the use of Twitch. They include;

Taking Down Your Child’s Account if They are Below 13

Twitch allows you, as a parent, to take your child’s Twitch account down if they are below 13. You will have to send an email with the relevant information to provide that the child is indeed below 13 to have the account deleted. 

Talk to Your Child

You can also have an open discussion about your child’s use of Twitch. Try to understand their favorite streamer and why they like them so much. You can also talk to them about the topics and conversations they follow on Twitch and whispers. This way, you have an idea of what your children get exposed to or what they could be exposed to.