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playstation 4 launch

PlayStation 4 Twitch Streaming Won’t Display Friend Requests Or Messages

by Kyle Hilliard on Nov 17, 2013 at 08:46 AM

In a clever bit of privacy ensuring foresight, PlayStation 4 friend requests and messages are blurred out while streaming online with Twitch.

While playing your PlayStation 4, friend requests and messages can appear unexpectedly revealing the names of hopeful friends, or content of private messages. If this happens while you’re streaming your gameplay online, built-in security measures will blur the name of incoming requests and messages so they are not widely broadcast.

When you hit the PS button on the controller to access your friends lists, messages, or other private information, the screen you see above displays on the stream so viewers won't be able to see what you're doing.

In the image below, you will see my attempts in the top left corner to send Dan Ryckert a message while he was streaming online earlier today. My message is blurred out. For those curious, the message was simply the word "test".

If you want to follow more of us Game Informer editors on Twitch, head here to find all of our account names.

 

Our Take
This shows some good forward thinking on the part of Sony and Twitch. The people with the most popular Twitch accounts that will have the most widely viewed channels could become targets for random friend requests from players hoping to see their name momentarily displayed on a popular channel. This should prevent that, and prevent PSN names and messages from being unknowingly displayed for all to see. Hopefully the Xbox One employs similar tactics.