Special thanks to Platforms & Society, the insightful anonymous reviewers, and Niels van Doorn for an exceptional editorial process in shepherding this article to publication.

Metas provide insight into what spurs changes to platform policies on Twitch and how unconventional stakeholders find a foothold in negotiating platform governance through the lens of platform culture.

Much like the adage that regulations are often written in blood, platform policies are often born from the wreckage of platform controversies.

For Twitch, metas provide a low-risk testing ground for new content. If well-received, platform policies can be adjusted to explicitly embrace such content. If rejected by platform users, policies can be enforced or adapted to remove the offending content and reaffirm the norms of platform culture.

For streamers, controversial metas are high-risk, high-reward endeavors. They put participating streamers at risk of being censured or banned, but also draw immense amounts of audience attention and can catapult small streamers into the ranks of the Twitch notorious.

I argue that, beyond entertainment, metas serve an agenda-setting function for the development of platform policies. By pushing the boundaries of what constitutes acceptable content on the platform, metas force public negotiations between stakeholders about who and what the platform is for.

In this article, I zoom in on the world of Twitch metas, or controversial content trends that drive attention on the platform. Specifically, I examine the fights that took place between streamers, audiences, and the platform over the hot tub meta, ASMR in yoga pants, and cryptocasino gambling.

The case study of Leon Valley demonstrates how social media can enable new modes of participatory politics and forge mediated connections to local places, even for people who are not actually locals.

First Amendment audits combine on-the-ground activism with clear and simple calls to action for viewers, helping to convert audiences into engaged participants and playing on media’s power to shrink both perceived distance and difference between groups.

Building on the idea of parasocial relationships, I argue that First Amendment auditors find activist success through building paralocal relationships between their audiences and the places they feature in videos.

To theorize paralocal relationships, I use the case of First Amendment auditors, activist content creators who film police and government officials as a means of testing and defending their rights to free speech and free press.

Paralocal relationships describe a sense of familiarity with and concern toward a place featured in media by viewers who have never been there.

My article is available here, open access, for New Media & Society: journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10....