TwitchCon, the event all about and for streamers, has announced a series of major changes regarding safety and filming consent in the lead up to its next event. While these changes are great to see, they were a long time coming, and the damage may already be done, as plenty of big names in the streaming community have expressed fear and hesitation over TwitchCon.
The latest incident at TwitchCon, following a growing series of incidents, happened last year when a fan assaulted popular streamer and cosplayer Emiru. While not the first incident, it may have been enough to finally prompt Twitch to implement more safety conscious rules.
What changes are coming to TwitchCon?
In a blog post, Twitch explained everything that attendees should expect to change before the next convention. There are four major changes: the implementation of filming consent lanyards, the introduction of ‘No Streaming’ areas, a new reservation system for meet and greets, and more trained security to ensure safety for all attendees.
According to Twitch, the new lanyards will allow attendees to “signal their comfort with being on camera”. Wearing the lanyard will indicate that you don’t want to “be prominently featured or recorded directly” by anyone else filming, which seems to indicate that it’s okay to film attendees wearing the lanyard as long as they’re in the background.
To enforce this rule, Twitch “may temporarily suspend [the offender’s] ability to stream for the duration of TwitchCon” and that further punishment may result in a suspension, removal from the convention, and a ban from future TwitchCons.
Meet and greets will no longer allow walk ups, as every attendee will need to make a reservation, including “guests or plus ones accompanying an attendee”. The layout of how meet and greets are set up will be reworked for “better separation between lines and creators, improved crowd management and queue design, and clearer entry and exit paths”.
In an effort to make streamers feel safer, Twitch added that, “we’re also strengthening support for participating creators, with increased resources in the lead up to TwitchCon and during the event, including backstage, and clearer, updated escalation channels, so help is easy to access whenever it’s needed”.
On the note of increased resources, better security was a major point of the TwitchCon announcement. Twitch has promised better trained staff, faster response time, and stronger coordination between convention staff to allow them to address any issues as soon as possible.
These new rules, along with areas were filming isn’t allowed, will hopefully help all attendees feel safer and more relaxed, especially at a convention with a long history of troubling incidents.
Why is TwitchCon adding all of these rules?
To put it succinctly, TwitchCon has a long history of problems regarding streamer and creator safety at their event. With intense parasocial relationships an obvious problem in the streaming world, stalkers and overeager fans have always been present and, in turn, prompted streamers to ask TwitchCon for better security measures for years.
The highest profile incident involving TwitchCon happened last October, when one of Twitch’s biggest creators, Emiru, was assaulted when a fan grabbed her and tried to kiss her. While the assault was terrible enough, the response from Twitch during and after made a bad situation worse.
In a social media post about the incident, Emiru called out Twitch for not helping her, writing that “there were at least 3 or 4 other Twitchcon security staff in the area who did not react and let the guy walk away”. Further criticizing Twitch, she wrote:
“In Twitch’s statement they said that the guy was immediately caught and detained, I’m sorry but that is a blatant lie. He was allowed to walk away from my meet and greet and I didn’t hear he was caught until hours after he attacked me, and it felt like this only happened because of my manager pressing for it, not because Twitchcon staff present thought it was a big deal”.
“This is definitely my last Twitchcon, and it saddens me to say as a 10 year off and on attendee of Twitchcon, I think other creators should seriously consider not attending in the future”.
Emiru’s incident isn’t the only time creators were made to feel unsafe at the convention – the infamous foam pit that injured Adriana Chechik in 2022 and the Kick streamers who harassed TwitchCon attendees in 2024 are the most obvious examples – but it was the highest profile enough to earn a personal apology from Twitch CEO Dan Clancy.
Given all the bad press surrounding the convention, along with a growing reputation for disregarding creator concerns, it’s not surprising TwitchCon has finally upped the ante on safety and consent. Hopefully it’s enough to make attendees and creators safe this time around.
