Streamer Pokimane says OnlyFans-style platforms are ‘the future’ amid Twitch branded content backlash

Imane ‘Pokimane’ Anys has had her say on the recent controversial changes to Twitch, which has seen the streaming platform face an online backlash.

Earlier this week, Twitch changed its branded content guidelines and faced immediate pushback from content creators.

The changes impacted how users could advertise sponsorships as well as banning them from multi-streaming to “Twitch-like” platforms.

Just a day later, Twitch revealed that they were removing the new guidelines after receiving widespread criticism.

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“Yesterday, we released new Branded Content Guidelines that impacted your ability to work with sponsors to increase your income from streaming. These guidelines are bad for you and bad for Twitch, and we are removing them immediately,” a statement read.

Pokimane/Twitch

“Sponsorships are critical to streamers’ growth and ability to earn income. We will not prevent your ability to enter into direct relationships with sponsors – you will continue to own and control your sponsorship business.

“We want to work with our community to create the best experience on Twitch and to do that we need to be clear about what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. We appreciate your feedback and help in making this change.”

Despite the apology, users have continued to hit out at Twitch.

Pokimane has now spoken about the direction streaming could take in future, and urged users to pursue new routes to get what they deserve for their content.

“I feel like because content creation is becoming so saturated [and] we often have trouble relying on the platforms we use, the future is direct to consumer paid content (patreon, onlypans, consumer goods, etc),” Pokimane wrote.

“Cut out the middle man and get proper compensation for what you make/do!” she added.

“Social media platforms will obviously always be used, but I think people will start looking at them as tools to gain exposure instead of being the way to make money,” the streamer went on to say.

It comes after the CEO of Twitch, Dan Clancy, personally apologised during a recent stream for the abandoned changes to guidelines and said the company had “messed up”.

“Let me just go straight to the point. For those who don’t know, we recently released this branded content policy. I won’t go through all the details,” he said recently.

“We got a lot of negative pushback and the bottom line is we messed up. It’s on us and I apologise for that.”

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