Hot tubs, yoga pants, and gamba: Twitch's controversial metas as cultural negotiations of platform governance

This study examines three of Twitch's most disputed content metas to theorize the agenda-setting power of controversies and the influence creators and audiences can wield over platform policymaking through disputes around content. Controversies surface how Twitch stakeholders test and push each other’s sensibilities about the culture of Twitch, and how informal collective sentiment around the boundaries of acceptable practices become formalized in governance decisions. Each of these seemingly esoteric enjoyments generated heated discussion on and about one of the largest livestreaming platforms in the world, resulting in significant changes to Twitch's Terms of Service and site design. As case studies for the role of cultural controversy in platform governance, I introduce three metas—hot tubbing, ASMR in yoga pants, and live gambling or “gamba,” examining how discussions about each meta coalesced into policy decisions that both responded to and reaffirmed Twitch's cultural positioning. Finally, I examine the governance role that cultural controversies play, and why discussions around content moderation and platform governance should attend to platform culture.