Twitch to allow streamers block banned users from watching streams

SAN FRANCISCO: Streaming platform Twitch has announced that it will soon let streamers block banned users from watching their streams.

The company announced the update in its latest episode of Patch Notes, its monthly product update show, reports TechCrunch.

After enabling the feature, banned users will be booted not only out of chat but out of a livestream itself in real time.

When it becomes available in the coming weeks, the new anti-harassment feature will also be integrated into Twitch's blocking tools, preventing blocked users from viewing a stream, according to the report.

Moreover, the report mentioned that the feature will not be enabled by default when dealing with banned users, but streamers will be able to toggle it within moderation settings.

Twitch Senior Product Manager Trevor Fisher explained in the Patch Notes stream that the long-requested safety addition is a first step towards a more robust solution in the future.

"We've gotten a lot of feedback over the years, to be honest, that people want their channel bans to do more," Fisher was quoted as saying.

The new option will also have workarounds, as it only blocks logged-in blocked or banned users from viewing the stream.

Twitch will refrain from IP blocking for the time being and has no other obvious way of keeping track of logged-out users, plus the feature will not prevent unwanted viewers from watching VODs, highlights, and clips, though Twitch plans to add that capability in the future, the report said.

Last month, Twitch introduced new Clip Editor features, Discovery feed and much more, at its TwitchCon Paris event.

The platform announced adding new features to the Clip Editor, including trimming functionality and the ability to grant access to the video editors.