Microsoft-owned game streaming service is being criticised for its new clothing guidelines for streamers. Many streamers have taken to social media calling the guidelines unnecessarily strict towards female streamers.

“There are some limits to what streamers can wear on camera. Our rules on clothing attempt to allow for expression while still keeping things safe for the wide variety of audience members that make use of our site," the company’s guidelines state.

Mixer has split its guidelines into three sections — family friendly stream, teen stream and 18+ stream. In these, the family friendly stream require “clothing must cover entire visible body from a few inches above the bust-line. It cannot be strapless and should show little to no cleavage". The teen stream, on the other hand, allows for “more than a hint of cleavage," though clothing can’t be strapless and must cover “the entire body," the guidelines state.

You can read Mixer’s full guidelines here.

“Just checking in to let everyone know by Mixer’s standards the meet and greets at Disney for Ariel, Moana, and Jasmine are 18+. Have a good day!!" wrote a streamer named Luxie on Twitter. Another streamer, Emily Bellow, who is a partner at Twitch (a competing streaming service), called the guidelines “archaic and backwards".

Behold Mixers 'Rating Specific clothing guidelines'.



Anyone else wildly uncomfortable at the idea of any visible skin not being family friendly??



Crop tops or visible shoulders are always 18+. Seems archaic and backwards. pic.twitter.com/iIOKjLvdnO — Emily Bello ⚡ #TwitchLDN (@EmStreams) August 2, 2019

Just checking in to let everyone know by Mixer’s standards the meet and greets at Disney for Ariel, Moana, and Jasmine are 18+



Have a good day!! — Luxie🍀✨ (@LuxieGames) August 3, 2019

1/ On the Mixer rules.



Women shouldn't be specifically policed.



The rules *apply* to everyone equally but disproportionately *affect* women. There's exactly 0 question that women have to make this adjustment (to 18+ rating) for totally normal attire while men generally don't. pic.twitter.com/LVltcw6q5Z — Hunter Wild (@TheHunterWildTV) August 3, 2019

What most gamers seem to be focusing on, is the fact that the clothing guidelines mostly mention female attributes and clothing. Some have even called the guidelines sexist and “cleavage focused".

In comparison, rival service Twitch’s guidelines on “Nudity and Attire" only mention, “We recommend attire appropriate for public settings, such as what you would wear on a public street, or to a mall or restaurant. For example, for a fitness stream, or an IRL (in real life) stream from a location such as a public breach, attire appropriate to those public contexts is recommended, such as workout clothes or a swimsuit, respectively." The company also notes that attire is “just one factor of many" that it considers when evaluating cases of sexual misconduct.

In recent case, Twitch had first removed and then allowed a video where a female streamer was shown breastfeeding. The video was originally taken down, but allow later after a review.

Interestingly, Mixer CEO, Matt Salsamendi had earlier compared his company’s Terms of Service to rival Twitch’s. “Twitch has struggled with things along the lines of enforcement for a long time because it’s a hard problem" Salamandi had said on a stream earlier.





Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter.

Share Via