Facebook lets Gaming streamers pick and choose their community guidelines

Let's face it: chats for gaming streams can get downright nasty. That's probably why Facebook is giving Gaming streamers access to helpful tools that can help them create and maintain a friendly environment for their fans. Sounds useful, especially since the company has been expanding the service and signing big-name gamers from rival platforms. The social network collaborated with Fair Play Alliance, a coalition of gaming companies, to write eight preset rules for a new toolkit.

Those eight rules are:

Creators can set the tone for their streams and only choose the rules they want their viewers to follow. For instance, if they want women to feel safe in their streams, they can choose to enforce the "Respect boundaries" rule. If they want to make everyone feel welcome regardless of their ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, gender identity or ability, then they can add "Respect boundaries" to their stream's rules.

They can set the rules they want from the Chat Rules section of the streamer dashboard before they go live. Fans will then have to accept those rules before they can leave a comment. In addition, a moderation dashboard will allow moderators to remove offending comments in real time, as well as to tell violators the exact rules they broke. That dashboard also comes with resources that can help prevent harassment, protect moderators' privacy and ensure creators feel safe. Facebook is launching these tools today, January 30th, in hopes that it can help creators "promote inclusion and respect in their communities" and make people "feel safe to express their distinct voice."