Twitch to ban Stake.com streams and other unlicensed gambling content

The ban takes effect October 18th

Sep 20, 2022, 10:43 PM UTC|

As the conversation concerning Twitch and the platform’s allowance of gambling streams continues to swirl, the platform has struck its first blow. In a tweet on Tuesday evening, Twitch stated that it will ban “streaming of gambling sites that include slots, roulette, or dice games” in a policy update effective October 18th.

Critically, Twitch is not banning all gambling, nor even all streaming of the gambling forms mentioned above. There will be a carveout permitting sports betting, fantasy sports, and poker, while the streaming of slots, roulette, and dice is only prohibited if the websites streamed aren’t “licensed in the U.S. or other jurisdictions that provide sufficient consumer protection.”

The gambling sites that will be swept up in the ban include Stake.com, which is one of the most popular slot gambling sites streamed on Twitch. Big streamers like xQc and Trainwreckstv frequently feature it on their streams.

Gambling on Twitch has become a hot-button topic as wealthy streamers seemingly promote their services, ostensibly to minors, and potentially feeding gambling addictions. Earlier this week, ItsSliker came forward admitting he bilked hundreds of thousands of dollars from fellow streamers to support his sports betting habit.

From that event, big-name streamers like DevinNash, Pokimane, and Mizkif, who is currently embroiled in a separate but tangentially related incident, proposed or supported a potential boycott of Twitch if the platform didn’t ban gambling from the site. Now, that action may no longer be necessary. However, sports betting, the form of gambling that started this recent conversation, is one that will be spared when the ban takes effect.

In its tweet, Twitch stated it will share more about its gambling policies ahead of their implementation on October 18th.

I want to interview the Sony party speaker team so badly.

This is like the fifth or sixth generation of these things. What are their meetings like? Do they go to frat parties to get feature ideas? Why did they go from “Mega Bass” to “Extra Bass” for the past few years back to “Mega Bass” for this one? Is this one team’s passion project or do they hire mercenary party speaker engineers? Please, someone contact me.

“You think Big Brother is watching you on the subways? You’re absolutely right.”

New York City is planning on adding two surveillance cameras to its subway cars, around 13,000 in total. The Gothamist pointed out governor Kathy Hochul’s (frankly incredible) remarks about the move.

She said the similarity to 1984’s Big Brother is intentional. “If you’re concerned about this, best answer is don’t commit any crimes on the subways.”

Control’s lead designer shared video of an early build of the game with in-development graphics.

Some have criticized GTA VI’s graphics seen in the videos that leaked this weekend. But this early footage of Control shows how even some of the best-looking games use placeholder assets during development that are improved upon for a game’s final release. I’m a big fan of the boxes with “THROW ME” printed on the sides.

Satellite-to-phone service is getting closer.

The FCC has given Lynk, one of the companies competing with SpaceX, T-Mobile, and Apple, a license to operate a commercial satellite-to-mobile communication service (though currently it’s only for coverage outside the US).

Lynk will still have to find a mobile carrier to work with and get FCC approval for that specific service, but it’s now cleared an important hurdle — plus, the company’s CEO told Fierce Wireless that it’s currently “working with testing” for two US carriers.

Crunchyroll looks ready to dump anime voice actors who push for union deals.

Kyle McCarley, the American voice of Shigeo “Mob” Kageyama in Mob Psycho 100, posted a video to YouTube, claiming Crunchyroll refused to even discuss a Netflix-like union contract ahead of S3.

According to Kotaku, the Sony-owned service confirmed it will “recast some roles.” McCarley’s voice fits the role of Mob so well it will be missed, but the consolidation of anime streaming rights leaves fewer companies to negotiate with — or watch.

YouTube’s biggest defense against TikTok: money.

The company is going to start giving creators a share of ad revenue when commercials play between YouTube Shorts. The platform’s relatively generous payments are a large part of its rich creator culture, and now we’ll find out if they’re enough to lure short-form creators away from TikTok.

Signal, the encrypted messaging app, gets free promotion from Twitter’s lawyers.

Last year, Elon Musk tweeted “Use Signal,” leading to a spike in new users. Twitter’s lawyers said in a footnote in a previous filing that Musk had been messaging with investor Marc Andreessen of a16z on Signal about a Twitter investment. The problem for Twitter’s discovery process is that Signal messages can be set to auto-delete; Musk’s lawyers maintain he doesn’t ordinarily use Signal for business. Now, there’s a sealed motion that…. contains Musk’s Signal tweet. ?

so…

the rest of the motion is under seal, but this exhibit is unsealed, in its entirety:

Exh 16 to Ltr to Chancellor McCormick from Kevin R. Shannon dated September 16, 2022 Regarding Twitter’s Motion to Sanction Defendants For Failure to Produce Responsive Phone Messages pic.twitter.com/s3mFLdIFPS

— The Chancery Daily (@chancery_daily) September 20, 2022

If you’re into the minimalist PC build then Nvidia’s latest GPUs might present a problem.

Nvidia finally announced the 40-series—specifically the more expensive and more powerful 4090 and 4080. But big power means these are some big cards and that could be a problem for PC builders who prefer smaller, minimalist looks for their PCs. Builders at the /sffpc subreddit, that focuses on small form factor pc builds, are already worried.

A lot of people seem to agree that lock screen widgets are one of the best new features of iOS 16.

So we put together a how-to on customizing your iPhone’s lock screen and wallpaper with widgets and design options, and even linking them to Focus modes. It’s easier than you’d think.

Apple replaced the iPhone 14 Pro’s SIM slot with a block of plastic.

iFixit’s teardown of the iPhone 14 Pro gives us a look at what’s behind the Dynamic Island, and does a good job of demonstrating why the regular iPhone 14’s removable back glass is so nice.

We also get to see what’s taken the place of the SIM slot: a bare PCB, and a plastic spacer. So useful!

Deathloop is out on Xbox Game Pass today.

If you subscribe to Xbox’s Game Pass service, you should definitely check out Arkane’s Deathloop, which is out now. It was one of my favorite games of last year when it debuted on the PS5 and PC, mixing extremely satisfying action with an intricate story about time loops. Here’s the full list of the latest Game Pass releases.

Bluetooth speakerphones are an underrated accessory.

Wirecutter has a good roundup of options, which are as good for Zoom calls as advertised, but they’re also just useful in life! I use mine roughly as a desk phone, and also connect it every time we’re doing the “everyone gather around the phone to talk to Grandma” thing. I have the Jabra Speak 510, and love it.

The SPAC-lash is here.

So remember the craze for SPACs, an alternative way to take a company public? The times, they have a-changed: the SPAC King of Silicon Valley, Chamath Palihapitiya, couldn’t find acquisition targets for two of his piles of cash. One of them, Social Capital Hedosophia VI, is the largest-ever SPAC.

Use every (mega) pixel.

Halide is touted as one of the best photography apps on the iPhone, and as usual, it has a new update out to help you get the most out of the best camera available on the platform — that 48-megapixel sensor on the iPhone 14 Pro.

Version 2.9.0 of Halide is live in the App Store, with quick 48MP shooting directly to HEIC or JPG and many other new features.

Speaking of CarPlay.

Dan posted about CarPlay earlier and it reminded me that wireless CarPlay has actually set Apple back in its quest to somehow take over the car market — problems with it disconnecting are the number one complaint from new car owners, according to JD Power. Something to think about as Apple continues its relentless quest to remove all the ports from our phones.

The most frequent problem reported across the industry regardless of powertrain type or brand cachet related to smartphone connectivity. Dropped connections with Apple CarPlay was the number one problem, as Android Auto complaints leveled off from last year. Further, the number of reported problems with wireless Apple CarPlay increased as well, due to the feature being offered in more cars.