Twitch Shared Ban update has viewers worried about mod abuse

Twitch streamers will be able to share their ban lists with other streamers in the near future through an upcoming Shared Ban update.

According to a report by Zach Bussey, Twitch is going to be adding a new feature soon that allows users to share ban lists with other channels. The Shared Ban update will make sharing lists of banned viewers easier than ever since it can be done directly on the platform itself. This could see particularly toxic users across multiple channels be more efficiently moderated.

Regardless of that potential benefit, the new update was met with mixed reviews from the streaming community.

Is the Shared Ban update good for Twitch users and viewers?

Many in the streaming community reacted passionately to the Shared ban update, some Twitch users in favor of it while others shared deep concerns.

While some felt that it was a great tool for moderators, others wondered if Twitch users would be wrongly banned from multiple channels. One person pointed out that some people are accidentally banned in one channel, which could mean getting banned in a second channel as a result of a mistake. Others wondered if viewers would get banned from other channels just because they got into an argument or disagreement with a streamer or moderator.

It was pointed out that streamers already do frequently share ban lists with each other. This wouldn’t be a new practice, just a more efficient way of carrying it out. There most likely wouldn’t be any big changes in the behaviors of Twitch streamers and mods as a result, although the way users and viewers on Twitch are impacted won’t be clear until the update is fully implemented.