Twitch has finally begun rolling out a previously announced feature that lets creators block banned users from watching their streams. Before this tool, banned users couldn’t participate in chats, but they could watch every second of your stream with their creepy little eyes. Now, they can’t. Well… mostly.
There’s a big-time caveat. While banned users can’t watch your streams, logged-out users can. So the workaround would be simply to log out and cruise to your page. Still, they’d have no way to make their presence known so it would become something of an “out of sight, out of mind” type thing.
This feature must be enabled via moderation settings in the Creator Dashboard, according to Twitch. Once you turn it on and drop the ban hammer on some pest, they’ll immediately lose the ability to watch your stream. You can un-ban them to renew access, or they can log out and watch you anonymously.
It’s also worth noting that Twitch is just banning users and not IP addresses, so another possible workaround would be for someone to sign-up with a new username via a new email address. That’s a fair bit of work, however, just to watch someone fool around with Baldur’s Gate 3. Still, it’s the internet so you never know.
The tool begins rolling out today, but Twitch says it could be a while before it reaches every account, noting that “these updates roll out over time, so some people get it a bit sooner than others.” Check your Twitch app and look for the update.
This is just the latest step in Twitch’s war against harassers. Other moves to address the issue have included the inclusion of a one-button anti-harassment tool, enhancing its reporting and appeals process, rewriting community policies and taking a strong stance against explicit deepfakes.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/twitch-finally-prevents-users-from-watching-channels-theyre-banned-from-153845731.html?src=rss