Starting next week, Twitch for iOS is adding over 350 new tags related to gender, sexual orientation, race, nationality, ability, mental health, and more.
According to the company in a blog post, the list of new tags includes transgender, Black, disabled, veteran, and Vtuber, among many others. Twitch says it will also remove references to “ally” from the LGBTQIA+ tag.
The company says these new tags won’t change how tagging works and are “completely optional. They simply give creators more choices.”
In the blog post, Twitch shares a bit more why the company is adding these tags and why now:
When we launched tags in 2018, we did so to boost discovery, to help creators describe their content and to help viewers find streams they’re interested in. We intentionally designed that system for creators to be able to describe what they were streaming, not who they were or what they stood for. We have maintained this distinction since that time, and we were wrong.
(…) The exception to the initial design was the LGBTQIA+ tag, which began as an experiment a few years ago and stayed based on overwhelmingly positive feedback from the community.
Twitch says it partnered with several independent, third-party organizations such as GLAAD, The Trevor Project, AbleGamers, SpecialEffect, and other experts focused on the progress of underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, LGBTQIA+, disabled, and marginalized communities, and, finally, the members of the Twitch community for their feedback.
On May 26, the Twitch team will go live on /twitch to speak more about tags and address questions users may have.
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