Social network Twitch has announced that streamers will soon be able to prevent banned people from viewing their content.
The new anti-harassment function will be included in Twitch’s blocking capabilities when it launches in the coming weeks, preventing barred users from seeing streams.
The tool won’t be turned on by default when dealing with banned users, but streamers will be able to toggle it in the moderation settings.
According to Twitch Senior Product Manager Trevor Fisher, the long-requested safety enhancement is a first step towards what may eventually be a more comprehensive solution. Fisher made this clarification during the Patch Notes stream.
“We’ve gotten a lot of feedback over the years, to be honest, that people want their channel bans to do more,” Fisher said.
Since the new option only stops logged-in prohibited or banned people from watching a stream, there will undoubtedly be workarounds.Twitch has no other apparent method of keeping track of logged-out users, thus it will halt short of IP blocking for the time being.
Additionally, the feature won’t yet prevent unauthorised users from watching VODs, highlights, or clips, though Twitch aims to eventually add that functionality.
