Graphics by Carl Pedraja
With the rise and abundance of AI or artificial intelligence, the internet has become an unsafe space for everyone. Anyone can become a victim of unfair use of their work or image with today's advanced technology. An issue involving deep fakes sparked recently when twitch streamer QTCinderella discovered that her fellow streamer friend, Atrioc, has been watching deep fake explicit content of female streamers, including his female friends who are also online personalities. These leave the disturbing thought many others may be consuming the same media, and some are yet to be caught red-handed.
Female streamers have long faced objectification and harassment. Many viewers, particularly men, may make inappropriate comments about a streamer's appearance, demand that they wear revealing clothing, or ask them to perform sexual acts on camera. While these platforms have taken steps to address these issues, such as banning certain words and phrases and allowing users to report abusive behavior, they still face constant harassment.
Many have spoken out about the toll that this constant objectification and harassment can take on their mental health. The amount of harassment is so much that many female streamers such as Pokimane, who is one of the faces of Twitch, make streams and content solely about “unbanning requests” from viewers who have said statements that disrupt the stream and harass her.
Streaming platforms have a responsibility to protect their users from harassment and objectification. While they have taken some steps to address these issues, there is still much more to do. They could invest in more strict moderation tools and hire more moderators to monitor streams to provide better support for streamers who have experienced harassment. They could also work to educate viewers about appropriate behavior when engaging in those streams to create a culture where harassment and objectification are not tolerated.
What can we do?
In line with Women’s Month this March, we should continue pushing for women’s safety - not just in real life, but also online. The best and most effective thing to do is to stop spreading and posting about the issue. It’s good to raise awareness about the issue, but revealing detailed and personal information and images will add more fuel to the fire. We should not dig deeper into the issue. It’s already awful that those videos or images have been immortalized on the internet.
Ultimately, the responsibility should not be on female streamers to simply endure this kind of behavior. It’s not acceptable for anyone to be treated this way, and platforms need to take action to ensure that everyone can feel safe and respected while streaming.
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