The new labels will “help protect younger viewers and advertisers”

Translation: The new labels will help us get more ad money. It’s got nothing to do with protecting young viewers.

If licking a microphone is sexual, is eating a banana on stream now obscene?

Sexual content isn’t banned so you can still watch it. Unfortunately, the mislabeling means:

1. Non-sexual streamers forced to label their content as sexual get harassed by viewers that are looking for sexual content.
2. Affected streamers will likely get less ad money.
3. Viewers that want to avoid sexual content cannot do so without also avoiding other content.

Swearing is also labeled as adult content so practically every streamer I watch is now labeled as adult content.

I mean, just lick something else right next to the mic…

The actual problem, binary labeling. If the category system is just “sexy” vs “non-sexy” you’re going to piss off a ton of in-between. However, you want to do it, IDK. It can be sexy+1 to sexy+10 or mildly suggestive to NSFW. But Twitch needs to acknowledge there’s a spectrum and ignoring that there is one is just going to piss people off.

Ear licking ASMR is intended to be sexual so this doesn’t surprise me.

I’m sure new categories will spring up to skirt the rules. Like rubbing the mic on their butt ASMR or similar.

Next up: Chewing on microphones.