Twitch streaming may be an appealing job for many but it comes with its own set of risks - specifically, privacy-related ones. As we've seen on many occasions, streamers and other Internet personas have dealt with stalkers, swatting and even home invasions from certain members of their audience.
It should come as no surprise, then, to learn that Twitch is now looking to offer both streamers and audience members alike a bit more privacy. Starting today, the live streaming platform is launching both public and private chat rooms for streamers to take advantage of.
As reported by The Verge, this feature was first unveiled back at TwitchCon last year but it's finally coming to the Twitch website and mobile app. A a desktop version is "coming soon," according to the company.
These new chat rooms appear to function almost like Discord's text channels, enabling streamers to create multiple named rooms and choose who has access to them. For example, streamers can create subscriber-only chat rooms in lieu of the restrictive and controversial "sub mode" or they can create moderator-only channels.
In addition to simply segmenting the audience based on credentials or donations, streamers can also create dedicated rooms for things like game spoiler discussions. Whether or not their audience will abide by a given room's rules is another matter.
Regardless, allowing streamers to have more control over their audience and the discussions they have could serve to cut down on the "toxicity" typically associated with many streamers' chat boxes.
https://www.techspot.com/news/73324-twitch-launches-discord-like-chat-channels-streamers.html
