Global AI AutoMod does not understand context - Tell your experience in comments

Right now making mature jokes in chat can get chatters permanently suspended globally on Twitch completely without any human intervention that requires context.

Clarification:
This is not about regular AutoMod but the HIDDEN global AI AutoMod present in all of Twitch channels.

The AI based AutoMod Twitch currently uses everywhere does not understand important contexts and takes all text at face value. Streamers who have a strong focus on the LGBTQ community find themselves having to tell their chatters not to express themselves freely, because what they joke about can be seen as hate speech even though they are strong supporters and allies. For moderators it seems they are not allowed to do what they are supposed to do, which is to determine what is appropriate in their streamers chats.

Anything of the following in chat currently gets flagged by AI based AutoMod:

Hints at self harm, even if clearly a reaction to a video game or made as a joke.
Threat of violence even if clearly in-game or as a joke. The context of the game being played may portray or make the same joke that is being commented on.
Jokes towards a protected group, even if the person who is making the joke belongs to that protected group themselves.
Sexual advances, even if clearly consensual, requested or welcomed by the streamer.
Right now it seems anything of the above in combination with a manual report will get your account permanently suspended. Partnered and mods for the channel it was flagged in appear to get more leniency.

While it is Twitch responsibility to protect all members of their community the current AI has become overly sensitive, especially for streamers who focus on mature themes and stream games that contain mature themes.

As long as streamers have their content classification set appropriately, should that not also extend to Twitch chat?

I suggest allowing "mature content" streamers to:

Turn off the global AI based AutoMod for their chat.
Reduce global AI based AutoMod sensitivity for their chat. (at the very least)

As long as they have set their stream content classification properly to:
Mature-rated games; Sexual themes; Drugs, Intoxication, or Excessive Tobacco Use; Violent and Graphic Depictions; Significant Profanity or Vulgarity; or Gambling. https://safety.twitch.tv/s/article/Content-Classification-Guidelines?language=en_US

Being able to discuss or joke about topics on screen of a sensitive nature is no longer possible in Twitch chat and streamers are seeing their most active chatters and supporters get permanently suspended for participating in completely consensual conversations.

I hope this can lead to further discussion regarding the matter.
Outsourcing moderation to AI, while it may save money, is not a good idea.

Thread on Twitch Feedback / User voice: https://twitch.uservoice.com/forums/951706-moderation/suggestions/47475527-global-ai-automod-does-not-understand-context

cragsand, 5 months ago

Since this global AI AutoMod remains an undocumented "feature" of Twitch chat from a while back a lot of the conclusions I've listed in the thread are based on deduction from watching active chatters get suspended and tell their stories on Discord and social media.

Most can luckily get their account reinstated after appealing but it relies on having an actual human look at the timestamp of the VOD and take their time to figure out what actually happened as well as get the complete context of what was going on on stream when it occurred. I've seen many apologies from Twitch moderation sent in emails after appealing, but if you get unbanned, an apology or stay banned seems mostly random.

Being banned like this will also make it much less likely that you want to participate and joke around in chat in the future, leading to a much worse chatting experience.

I see some discussions are arguing that all AI flagged moderation events are actually reviewed by humans (but poorly) and this is a possibility. Because of the lack of transparency from Twitch regarding how this works it's very difficult to know for sure how these reviews are done. A manual report in combination with an AI flag is almost certainly a ban. One thing is sure though, and that is that too much power is given to AI to judge in these cases.

Seeing as permanent suspensions from accounts who have had active paying subscriptions for YEARS on Twitch can be dished out in seconds, either those reviewing are doing a lousy job, or its mostly done by AI. Even worse, if those reviewing are underpaid workers who get paid by "number of cases solved per hour" there is little incentive for them to take their time to gather more context when reviewing.

A similar thing happened on YouTube at the start of 2023, where they went through all old videos speech-to-text transcripts and issues strikes retroactively. It got a lot of old channels to disappear, especially those with hours of VOD content where something could get picked up and flagged by AI. For the communities I'm engaged in, it meant relying less on YouTube for saving Twitch VODs. It was brought up by MoistCritical about a year ago since it also affected monetization of old videos.

A more reasonable alternative to permanent bans on paying customers is global muting. That would also be an improvement.

Thank you everyone who has been talking about this and helping inform that this is not at all working as intended 💙

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