Twitch will allow Amazon to use creators’ content to train generative AI models, with streamers automatically included unless they manually opt out. The policy has sparked backlash across the Twitch community, particularly because livestream recordings contain extensive amounts of creators’ voices, video and other original material that could be valuable for training AI systems.
Twitch Defends The Opt-Out Approach
During a livestream on the official Twitch channel, Head of Community Mary Kish and Chief Product Officer Mike Minton addressed viewers who questioned why participation was not opt-in. Minton acknowledged that this was one of the main complaints in the chat, saying that if participation were voluntary from the start, “nobody would opt in.”
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Twitch’s community has generally been sceptical of generative AI, partly because many AI systems have been trained on books, images, videos and other online material without creators’ consent. Against that backdrop, the company announced the change by highlighting a new setting that allows users to opt out of having their channel content used to train generative AI models across Amazon.
Questions Remain Over Existing Content
The announcement also raised questions about whether Twitch content had already been used for AI training. When a viewer asked whether Amazon had previously used their videos, Minton said he did not know what content Amazon had already used for model training.
Twitch noted that its approach is not unique. Meta, for example, uses public content from Facebook and Instagram to train its AI models, although the options for opting out vary by country and platform settings. Kish said Twitch’s decision to provide an opt-out option reflects feedback from its creator community.
How To Opt Out
Creators who do not want their content used for Amazon’s generative AI training can disable the feature through their channel settings. Users need to open their channel settings rather than the Creator Dashboard, select Security And Privacy, find Training For Generative AI and switch the option off.
The policy puts the decision in creators’ hands, but only after they take action to exclude themselves, raising broader questions about who should control the use of livestream content as generative AI continues to expand.
