The speaker, a content creator on Twitch, discusses a controversy involving Burger King's use of Twitch's text-to-speech (TTS) donation feature to advertise their menu. The campaign, known as "The King of Stream," involved Burger King paying a minimum donation to have comments read aloud on various Twitch streams. This was done to promote Burger King's menu to the audience and streamers.
The speaker argues that this practice violates Twitch's and Streamlabs' terms of service, as it is considered unsolicited advertising and promotional materials. The speaker also points out that the practice is a clear violation of the terms of service for the third-party live streaming software that handles the donations and provides the TTS feature.
The speaker further argues that the practice is akin to broadcast signal intrusion, where broadcasting tools are misused to interrupt an ongoing piece of content with an unwanted message. The speaker compares this to the "Max Headroom" incident, where a man hijacked the signals of two television stations in Chicago to ramble incoherently.
The speaker suggests that the best way for streamers to fight back against such practices is through self-enforcement of the rule that you don't use someone else's stream to promote your own. This is already in the "don't" column of official Twitch etiquette, and Twitch users are typically quick to call out those who violate the etiquette.
The speaker concludes by suggesting that streamers can treat massive corporations promoting burgers the exact way they'd treat a 12-year-old promoting his "lit" fortnight streams. They can either not engage with them, report them, or shame them on social media until the behavior stops.
Here are the key facts extracted from the text:
1. The speaker is discussing a controversy involving Burger King and Twitch, a live streaming platform.
2. Burger King and the ad agency David Madrid created a campaign called "The King of Stream" on Twitch.
3. The campaign involved having comments from different Twitch streams read aloud via text-to-speech (TTS) for a small donation.
4. The audience and streamers were made aware of Burger King's menu deals through this campaign.
5. The campaign was seen as a violation of Twitch's terms of service and the terms of service for the third-party live streaming software Streamlabs.
6. The speaker suggests that the campaign was a form of advertising, not a sponsorship, as it did not involve a relationship between the parties.
7. The speaker also suggests that the campaign was closer to a traditional ad than a sponsorship, as it involved a payment for specific messaging.
8. The speaker mentions that the campaign was seen as a breach of community engagement tools, similar to broadcast signal intrusion.
9. The speaker suggests that streamers can fight back against such practices by reporting them, shaming them on social media, or not engaging with them.
10. The speaker argues that streamers have the right to show companies why they're wrong if they believe a text-to-speech donation breaks with etiquette.
11. The speaker concludes that the legal battle may not be winnable for some time.