British Politicians Criticize Twitch For Poor Mental Health Of Streamers

thegamer.com:

While streaming on Twitch has been a dream job for many content creators, the career has often come at a significant cost in so far as their mental health is concerned. Long hours with very little support have driven dozens of them to burn out completely over the last couple of years. The platform is now coming under fire by politicians in the UK for encouraging content creators to spend inordinate amounts of time online.

Labour Member of Parliament Alexander Sobel has been calling on Twitch to change its ways. "The platform really needs to think about its mechanics and changing the financial model to protect the health of streamers," he told the BBC. "They're set up to encourage people to be on there as long as possible to keep viewers.” The politician said that reworking this “could create a nudge effect to change how streamers operate to protect their health.”

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Twitch currently allows content creators to be online for a maximum of 48 hours in a single session. Sobel thinks the platform "needs to look at that" in order to "better protect the health of streamers.” Twitch claims to be "developing targeted programming to support Twitch streamers with challenges like burnout, boundary setting, and other pressures that come with a career in online content creation." The website also provides links to mental health resources.

The streamer SVB pointed out that “it's about being online for as long and as often as you can so the maximum number of people can tune in.” He went on to criticize how Twitch functions. "The longer you're online, the higher your viewership can go which makes it more likely for you to be seen on the browser