Twitch has announced it is establishing a policy of “complete transparency” on paid or sponsored content, which it refers to as “influencer campaigns”.
“Because of a lack of clear best practices and shifting regulatory guidelines, coupled with a sometimes less-than-transparent sponsor relationship, these kinds of campaigns have become a bit of a dark corner in the industry, and that’s bad for everyone,” the company said in a new blog post.
“For these reasons, gamers can tend to look skeptically on the ecosystem because they don’t know what is paid-for content and what is not. It also opens influencers to potential criticism.
“While we have always encouraged our broadcasters to acknowledge if they are playing games as part of a promotional campaign, we are now establishing a much more transparent approach to all paid programs on our platform and hope that it sets a precedent for the broader industry. Simply put: We want complete transparency and unwavering authenticity with all content and promotions that have a sponsor relationship.”
As a result, all sponsored content with be clearly marked with a tag on the front page and even an acronym in Tweets advertising the content.