The Twitch platform (illustration).

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Christophe Ena / AP / SIPA

Twitch updated its hateful behavior and harassment policy on Wednesday.

In particular, the streaming service threatens to suspend account users guilty of "serious offenses" committed offline.

These new measures significantly broaden the scope of possible sanctions for the platform, which is part of Amazon's digital empire.

"We are convinced that serious offenses committed by Twitch users elsewhere than on our site can present a considerable risk to the whole community," the site, which is popular with video game enthusiasts, now indicates in its terms of use.

"Consequently, we will sanction the accounts concerned, by applying measures which can go as far as an indefinite suspension from the first violation in the context of certain behavior offline or on other Internet services", adds the platform.

In January, we began enforcing our updated Hateful Conduct and Harassment policy so we could better protect every person on Twitch.



Today, we want to share our plans for how we'll handle incidents that happen off Twitch.



Read the blog here: https://t.co/vBnoY6nPau pic.twitter.com/KQX1ZBsRVg

- Twitch (@Twitch) April 7, 2021

Need for irrefutable evidence

Among the behaviors targeted by the new Twitch policy are lethal or violent actions, death threats, terrorist activity, participation in a "notorious hate group" and the sexual exploitation of children.

Twitch recognizes, however, that extending the realm of sanctions to offline behavior requires compelling evidence before taking action.

"In most cases, this involves a direct link to a public message or content directly uploaded by the offending user," explains the Amazon platform, which specifies that screenshots or messages likely to have been modified are generally not admissible.

Safeguards in place

Twitch also explains that it is considering "to use the police to assess the merits of the charges and evidence."

Users also have the option of contacting an external investigative team by email to report, in confidence, abusive behavior outside of Twitch's services.

In order to avoid abuses, the platform is also considering safeguards.

It ensures for example that if the incriminated facts occurred a long time ago, if their person in charge has already served his sentence and if he does not present a "clear and immediate" danger, sanctions are not necessarily to be considered.

If the account has already been deactivated, an appeal is possible.

On the other hand, for the most serious cases, Twitch indicates that "the suspension can never be the subject of an appeal".

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