An Open Letter to the DLive Community

I want to take this opportunity to update all of you about DLive’s ongoing efforts to address the issue regarding the incident that happened on Jan 6th.  

Before getting into the details, I want to clarify our basic position. DLive’s mission is to create a value sharing live streaming platform that empowers creators and viewers. Since our launch in 2017, we have made great progress toward that goal. Today, over 350,000 creators all around the world choose our platform to livestream.

The overwhelming majority of this content is fundamentally positive. Indeed, we estimate that over 90% of our streamers are focused on topics unrelated to news and current events – with most of them focused on gaming being played and discussed by some of the world’s most forward-thinking players. At its core, DLive is a collaborative gaming platform. Among the 10% or less who are discussing news and current events in their live streams, the majority are doing so in ways that are compliant with the law and with our Community Guidelines, which expressly prohibit hate speech.

Together with the viewers who come to the platform, these creators have built a community in which everyone is rewarded for their participation and contribution thanks to the transformative power of blockchain technology. Instead of a centralized corporation hoarding the lion’s-share of the value off of creators’ work, on DLive rewards appropriately flow to creators and to viewers, with DLive taking a relatively modest share.

In this vision of a decentralized, creator-driven community there is no place for lawbreakers, those who would incite violence or would disseminate hate speech, including in service of repugnant ideas like white supremacism.

Like many internet platforms, DLive works to preserve an open environment for free expression even of views we might not personally agree with. At the same time, we are committed to enforcing all applicable laws and upholding our Community Guidelines.

On January 6, 2021, a number of individuals may have broken the law and certainly violated our Guidelines when they used DLive to livestream their participation in the assault on the U.S. Capitol building.

We absolutely condemn this abuse of our service and regret that it happened. As soon as we became aware of the situation, we acted to shut down those livestreams.

Since then we have:

–   Indefinitely suspended the accounts of the individuals who used DLive to livestream from the riots.
–   Suspended those individuals’ access to any tokens given to them by community members.

Today, we want to share a number of additional steps we are taking. 

First, we have demonetized all accounts that operate in our “X-tag” section. For those who are unfamiliar, this is the section of our site where all content that is deemed to only be appropriate for mature audiences must be placed. Today, virtually all non-gaming content lives in this section. Creators operating in that space will be able to stream, but not to accept any payments from community members using our reward system. 

We know that many legitimate creators operate in this section of our site and we regret the impact this has on them. But we simply will not tolerate the possibility of violent extremists not only broadcasting on our platform, but potentially profiting by misusing our platform to promote violence or illegal conduct.  This action seeks to prevent that from happening. 

Second, we have substantially expanded our moderation resources and are undertaking a thorough review of all current X-tag accounts with significant viewership. Any account found to be violating our Community Guidelines will be proactively suspended for at least seven days and any future violations will lead to a permanent ban.

Third, given the statements from U.S. law enforcement of ongoing security threats related to the January 20th inauguration of President-Elect Joe Biden, we will be temporarily shutting down the operation of our site for users located in the Washington, DC area. While we cannot control how people conduct themselves on that day, we can ensure that DLive will not be misused to incite violence, promote lawlessness, livestream illegal acts or hate speech.

Fourth, we will cooperate with any law enforcement requests for assistance in identifying possible illegal activity that may have taken place on the platform.

We are continuing to review the situation and may take further action if we conclude that it is necessary.

We are in touch with our infrastructure providers, including our cloud service providers, as well as the relevant mobile app stores to address any concerns they may have. 

Most importantly, we welcome the community’s feedback.

At the end of the day, our goal is simple: to be the collaborative, content-driven platform we were built to be. We aspire to foster a site that shows the world all the positive things that can emerge from a decentralized creative, law-abiding community and how technologies like blockchain can be liberating and empowering.

I hope you will join me in that effort.

Sincerely,
Charles

DLive Team

dlive.tv