Twitch pauses paid promotion of streams after porn abuse

Twitch has paused Boost Train, a feature that allowed users to promote streams to the frontpage for a fee. Recently, Twitch users reported seeing pornographic videos through that promotional feature.

A Twitch Spokesperson confirms to PC Gamer that ‘the Boost Train experiment’ has been paused due to ‘security concerns’. The spokesperson did not provide any additional details about the break; for example, it is not known how long this will last.

Boost Train is a new variant of the previously presented Twitch Boost. Boost Train allows viewers to boost certain streams, making them more visible in certain parts of the site, such as on the front page. Viewers can boost streams with coins they earn within Twitch or with money. How much money boosting a stream costs depends on the account to be promoted.

on Twitter and reddit informed users that they had been seeing promoted porn streams since last week. These streams were labeled as being promoted by the streamers’ community, indicating that they were promoted by Boost Train. Such content is not allowed on Twitch.