An OVBInterview

As many of you may or may not know, Twitch, the internet's most popular streaming site has been under-fire the past couple of months. Since mid-October of last year,

Emmett Shear, CEO of Twitch

the company's CEO, Emmett Shear, was interviewed during TwitchCon where he stated this.

This won't be the last you see of LLance, a YouTuber that focuses primarily on skits and satirical criticisms. His content is similar to what I enjoy covering within the magazine, so he seemed to fit into this Q&A perfectly. More on him later.

This Q & A Assignment was targeted toward interviewing an "expert" in a field related to the theme of this magazine site. As such, my first thought was to interview a Professor at my school's campus. He has published a plethora of pieces relating to:

• Popular culture, marketing, and mass media.

• Video games and comic books impact on culture.

• Brands have in terms of the stories they tell and how they give consumers opportunities to buy into mindsets as opposed to just simple product use and functionality.

The Topic: Moderation and the Social Environment, currently, on Twitch

The interview -

Q: On a scale of 1-10, how familiar are you with the Twitch Platform?

A: I would probably say I am about an 8. Obviously I don't subscribe or donate, but I do watch it a lot. There was even a time where I was doing research with it and looking at the platform from a means of a marketing and communications standpoint. I do watch it a lot, and would view and watch streamers taking notes on how they would act and interact.

Q: Are you familiar with Twitch's community guidelines?

A: Yes, down to the last letter-maybe not so much, but yes I am fairly familiar with the outlook of the company and the various controversies surrounding it.

Q: Is it up to the company/brand to moderate its users, or should it be up to the leader of said community?

A: I would say it has a large part to do with Twitch. Now, I do think I have to throw a caveat in there because, obviously, a person can feel offended for a whole variety of different reasons. However, I am sure Twitch is aware of Amazon, and as such, cannot allow the freedom of expression, I think, that most users are looking for.

Q: Can you think of other forms of media that face this issue similarly?

A: Reddit is huge and it will probably continue to face this issue for eternity. Because, they seem to suffer from the issue where someone comes in as a mod, and they approve someone who begins to work solo outside the boundaries of the platform. For YouTube, you have the faceless person stifling the ability for content creators to procure certain content on YouTube.

Q: Is there a lack of transparency affecting the nature of procuring content on the platform?

A: I think there are two sides to the argument. When social media was first created, and when I say social media I mean social networking, because the first rotary phone could be considered a social medium, but they weren't meant for employment.

For a more detailed look into the interview you can check out the 16:30 minute discussion here:

If you'd like to check out the clips that were shown to Dr. Lucas, you can view them in a YouTube playlist found here. Again, thank you LLance for your content contributions to the platform.

Thanks for tuning in! Make sure to keep an eye out for more content on the way.

Signing Off,

-OVBDavid