An evaluation of the impact of Twitch’s content classification labelling

This Economics Discussion Paper analyses the impact of changes that the video sharing platform Twitch made to its content classification labelling in 2023. As the regulator for the video-sharing platforms and Online Safety regimes, it is important that Ofcom evaluates safety measures deployed by platforms to understand their impact and effectiveness in improving online safety. The research in this paper both advances our understanding of safety measures and their efficacy, and builds our internal skills and knowledge on using platform Application Programming Interfaces (‘APIs’) to collect data to inform research.

We set out to understand whether a new content labelling practice changed viewing behaviour of mature content. This research enabled us to apply quantitative techniques to a live platform change and assess its effects both on creators and viewers. Our work demonstrates the importance of carrying out in-depth analysis, which often brings about greater and more robust insights than could be achieved from simplistic comparisons of high-level metrics.