Watchers have abused Twitch's paid stream enhancements to promote pornography

Promote their favourite streamers

Twitch is closing down a function that allows fans to pay to promote their favourite streamers after it was exploited to push porn and other NSFW content onto its homepage by bad actors.A handful of Twitch users on Twitter this week discovered streams of porn films on the homepage, all with the tagline "Promoted by the streamer's community," as first reported by PC Gamer.

"Boost Train" scheme

Unidentified users appeared to be taking advantage of the platform's "Boost Train" scheme, which enhances streamers if enough followers buy subscriptions and bits to create a "hype train."Only a few streamers have the Boost Train feature enabled because Twitch only made it available to partners and affiliates. It's still unclear how the bad guys got access to accounts with Boost Train enabled.

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"For safety reasons"

A Twitch spokesperson told Engadget that the Boost Train feature has been paused "for safety reasons." Twitch will not say whether it had identified the users responsible for the offensive content or if it planned to bring Boost Train back.While sexually explicit content is prohibited by Twitch's terms of service, some critics claim the platform is inconsistent in what it prohibits.

"Mature label,"

To identify sexually explicit streams, the platform utilizes a mixture of community feedback and AI. Twitch is exploring a "mature label," which would allow streamers to experiment with more R-rated content but it still prohibits streaming masturbation or sexual intercouse, according to Dot Esports.

"Paid Boosts" scheme

Support Train debuted earlier this month, replacing the critically derided "Paid Boosts" scheme, which allowed fans to directly pay .Twitch to boost their favourite streamers.Boost Train, on the other hand, was created to recognise and reward smaller streamers with a rising viewership.