Twitch confirmed this week that parent company Amazon is training generative AI models on the platform’s livestream content, and that streamers are automatically opted in unless they manually turn the setting off. The disclosure, madeiate backlash from the platform’s creator community
Twitch framed the announcement as the addition of a new privacy control, describing it as a change that “adds a setting that lets you opt out of having your channel content used to train generative AI content models across Amazon.” The framing effectively confirmed, rather than announced, that the training was already taking place.
As Twitch Head of Community Mary Kish and Chief Product Officer Mike Minton addressed the policy directly on a livestream on the official Twitch channel, watched by a chat filled with anti-AI sentiment. Kish said she anticipated the reaction. “We don’t expect you to be happy or excited about this,” she said. “I don’t expect anyone to react to this favorably.”
Minton was asked directly why the setting was opt-out rather than opt-in. “There’s an honest answer,” he said. “If this was opt-in, nobody would opt in. That’s honestly the answer.”
The policy has drawn particular concern on Twitch because streamers often broadcast their voices and likenesses for many hours per week. Some streamers took to X to criticize both the training itself and the opt-out mechanism. Twitch user Legundo wrote: “EVERYONE make sure to turn this off and tell Twitch we don’t want this crap!”
Minton also said he could not confirm whether Amazon had already used Twitch content for model training before this week’s announcement. “I don’t actually know the answer to that question because I don’t know what Amazon […] has done in terms of model training and what they’ve used and not used,” he said, adding to Business Insider that he is “not responsible for Amazon’s training efforts.”
Kish noted Twitch is not alone in the practice, pointing to Meta’s use of public Facebook and Instagram content to train its own AI models as a comparable industry precedent. She characterized the opt-out option itself as a direct response to community pressure: “a reflection of reacting to this community’s voice that you are not wanting to train Gen AI models.”
To opt out, Twitch users can go to their channel settings, select the Security and Privacy tab, and toggle off “training for generative AI.” Minton said Twitch already uses AI for captions, clips, and content classification, but does not currently use generative AI features on the platform itself.
Check Out Our Podcast
