Model and Twitch streamer MissBaffy took a break from playing League of Legends to point out an alleged double standard on the streaming platform that she felt was "sexist."
While coming up with a description for her stream, MissBaffy decided to play around with variations of "crazy British woman." She tried "woman," "female," "gal," and "lady," all of which were not allowed to be used. MissBaffy then typed in "crazy British male" and the description was approved for use.
MissBaffy was quick to call the double standard "sexist," but the Twitch community has felt torn about the situation.
On Reddit, gamers and streamers attempted to figure out the reason behind the targeted censorship. Some pointed out that it was a way to "protect" women from male streamers who want to use the term "crazy female" to target them for harassment. But others found it offensive how much women were being coddled on Twitch, saying that women were being treated like "disabled children."
Still, many women have spoken out against the sexism in the streaming community, especially after Imane "Pokimane" Anys was hate raided and SweetAnita revealed multiple stakers. This could lead to more protective measures against possible sexism and harassment towards women on the platform.
Some in the streaming community wondered why Twitch couldn't just let people use the term "crazy female" to weed out the sexists and harassers instead of banning all possible uses of the phrase since some women want to use it to be funny. While it was possibly meant to initially "protect" women, it seemed like it was actually limiting women or speaking for them.
It was quickly pointed out, however, that the banned terms were probably not the doing of a real-life person.
"I highly doubt a human came up with this. Looks like an algorithm came up with combinations of keywords that got a lot of reports and just prematurely decided to not allow those words in that order," Reddit user urismcderp said.
But even this frustrated a lot of people in the streaming world. One reply noted that Twitch will often follow the same pattern of claiming they need more moderation but don't seem willing to pay for a system that uses actual people to determine what is truly racist or sexist. Instead, Twitch will opt for the less expensive option of using an automated system that does "stupid shit" and ends up being "completely unfair."
Since the incident went viral, MissBaffy tweeted that she was actually just being "sarcastic" about Twitch's "reverse sexism." She added that she was "trying to be funny" and didn't actually care about the situation at all.
"It was just for memes," she wrote with a laugh.
While MissBaffy may have just been joking around, the subject has clearly been a touchy one for many in the streaming community due to Twitch's very inconsistent Terms of Service and punishments. The streaming platform is constantly under fire for giving out long bans for some and shorter punishments for others who are seen as getting special treatment due to their identity or popularity.
