New Ofcom proposals would stop under 18 UK streamers from earning donations

Jack Stewart, Senior Editor

Last Updated: 26/09/2025

UK regulator Ofcom has proposed new online safety guidelines which could prevent teenagers from making a living by streaming.

The proposed rule changes are to help protect teenagers from being groomed online and stop the viral sharing of illegal content.

Ofcom wants to restrict under-18s’ livestreams, with no commenting, gifting, reacting to or recording of their livestreams allowed.

No gifting would mean that under-18s would not be able to receive Twitch donations, subscriptions, or similar sources of revenue.

This could cause issues for various communities, like Fortnite and Rocket League, which have a lot of young players and streamers.

Twitch requires users to be at least 13 years old when they create an account, and for 13-18-year-olds to have parental supervision on the platform.

Meanwhile, TikTok requires viewers to be 13 years old or older, but only allows those aged 18 upwards to livestream.

Similarly, many esports allow teenagers to compete in video games professionally.

As of 2024, Rocket League has allowed players as young as 13 years old to compete in RLCS and other esports events.

Regularly, esports players are recommended to livestream as an additional source of income and to explore career options once they retire.

A recent UK survey found that a quarter of boys aged 9-10 want to pursue a career in esports.

Twitch has reached out to various UK streamers for their views on this.

Additionally, Ofcom is collecting feedback on the proposed changes with a consultation response form available until October 20th.

What rule changes does Ofcom want to make for livestreaming platforms?

The UK regulator wants to introduce the following rule changes to livestreaming services that are possible for children to access:

• It must not be possible for users to comment, send gifts, react, screen capture, or screen record any livestream by a child in the UK.
• Where technically feasible, livestreaming services should also try to ensure that other tools outside of the service are not used to screen capture or record the livestream.

Ofcom wants these requirements to be met whether users are logged into the service or not.

There are various reasons Ofcom wants to prevent comments on under-18s’ streams.

The regulator claims it will reduce the grooming of children, reduce the coercion of children into sexual behaviour, prevent viewers from encouraging self-harm or suicide, reduce bullying, and reduce the ability for illegal content to be shared with children.

Additionally, restricting donations is to remove the ability for an individual to bribe or influence a child to do something via gifting, particularly sexual behaviour.

Ofcom also acknowledges that it is hard to prevent third-party recording software, but hopes these measures will reduce opportunistic offending and help prevent the production of child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

Jack Stewart, Senior Editor

In my seven years of esports writing, I've introuduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I'm most proud of the latter.

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