The Twitch Spongebob emote that was deemed too “sexual” for use on the video streaming platform has now been approved after a minor change was made (and with no subsequent explanation). Twitch streamer Shift says that he’s gotten the green light to use the emote, but he’s certainly not happy about the situation.
“After trying to figure out what could possibly be “sexual” about it for 10 days while begging for Twitch to give me answers, shiftRIP has finally been verified after… making the underwear transparent,” he said on his Twitter. “(I never got an answer from Twitch either.)”
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The Twitch Spongebob emote was previously rejected as it was deemed to fall under “sexual” content by Twitch. The only change made to the emote was that the underwear was made transparent (as seen in our header image). Understandably, Shift was not happy about this situation.
“I understand why Twitch doesn’t want ‘underwear emotes’ on their site,” he began, “because underwear applied to humanoid characters can be used sexually and they probably don’t want to set that precedent.”
“But their response was so automated and vague that it sounded hilarious. Especially as a Twitch partner who makes QUITE a bit of money for this company, I would expect to at least have a real explanation for why it was rejected. Instead, I had to guess. ESPECIALLY if the reasoning isn’t listed in their emote guidelines.”
Shift then proceeded to highlight the Twitch guidelines on emotes, the relevant portion of which we’ll reproduce here:
RESPECT TWITCH POLICIES
You should only create emoticons that adhere to Twitch’s Terms of Service and Community Guidelines. Examples of content prohibited from use in emotes by our Community Guidelines includes, but is not limited to, the following:
[…]
• Sexual content, such as depictions of sexual acts (sex, masturbation), arousal, gestures, aids, and attire
Note: Gasm-style emotes (emotes imitating the Kreygasm global emote) are permitted.
It could be argued that the Twitch Spongebob emote could be considered sexual under a very broad definition, but it strikes Shift as inconsistent behavior on their part. He is, in fact, rather displeased with how the whole situation was handled.
“I’m running a business on Twitch and these emotes are part of my product,” he concluded. “Really dissatisfied with the unprofessional handling of this on their end especially with how they handled the removal of shiftF, but that’s a whole different story. “
