题　目：The Impact of Banning Online Gambling Livestreams: Evidence from Twitch.tv

嘉　宾：Qifan Han (韩啟凡) , Ph.D. Candidate, Boston University

主持人：张铄 副教授 金沙威尼斯欢乐娱人城

时　间：2024年11月20日（周三）下午15:30-17:00

地　点：金沙威尼斯欢乐娱人城 徐汇校区 金沙威尼斯欢乐娱人城A305

内容简介:

The necessity of content regulation on digital platforms, particularly concerning misinformation and harmful content, has sparked a growing debate. While many platforms have increasingly relied on self-regulation to address these issues, the effectiveness of such measures remains uncertain, as platforms may prioritize profits over consumer protection, potentially leading to misaligned incentives with regulators. We investigate the effectiveness and market outcomes of content self-regulation by studying Twitch’s ban on online gambling livestreams in October 2022, using a novel high-frequency panel dataset covering the top 6,000 Twitch streamers. To identify banned content and streamers affected by the policy, we leverage video analysis on historical video clips, high-frequency stream titles, and in-stream chat analysis.On the supply side, we find that the policy caused a reduction in weekly gambling streams by 63.2% for streamers whose content was banned and 12.2% for streamers whose content was not banned. However, the policy also decreased non-gambling streams as an unintended cost for the platform, resulting in an overall reduction in content production and diversity. Additionally, the more popular streamers experienced a higher content reduction, driven by two underlying mechanisms: lower reliance on gambling content and concerns for reputation. On the demand side, we find that the policy only reduced total viewership and low-tier subscriptions, with revenue from loyal viewers unaffected. We discuss the implications of Twitch’s policy ban and the broader practices of content self-regulation on platforms in general.

演讲人简介：

Qifan Han is a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at Boston University. His research focuses on quantitative marketing and applied econometrics, with a particular interest in content production, consumption and regulation in digital markets, such as the video game and livestreaming industries.

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