A feature on Twitch that allowed streamers to pay their way to the front page has now been temporarily removed after users were using it to push porn streams to the top.
As reported by PC Gamer, these paid porn stream boosts were noticed by those like TheNoosh22 when they saw a stream featuring a topless woman that touted it was "promoted by the community." While that particualr user was banned pretty quickly, others were also abusing the feature and Twitch decided it was time to pull the plug on it, at least for now.
These paid boosts were first announced in October 2021 and were an evolution of the Boost This Stream feature from December 2020 that pushed streamers to more visible spaces if they were to complete Community Challenges. Paid boosts are similar, but this time the boosting was done by using real money.
The paid boosts program ended in late 2021, and a near-identical one called Boost Train took its place, and problems quickly arose.
"Looks like determined trolls are literally paying for accounts with access to the Boost Train... and then literally creating hype trains to get porn onto the front page," streamer Zach Bussey said.
There is no word as to when or if these paid boosts will come back.
For more on Twitch, check out how Twitch streamers in Russia were hit by economic sanctions and the company's new rules that are meant to stop misinformation spreaders.
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
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