Shared intimacy can result in stronger bonds being formed, while an imbalance in power can create more complex ties with barriers to "access" between one person and another.

Regulation as Positive Resistance:

Interpersonal Interactions can also be a form of digital resistance, permitting a content creator to limit negative influences on their communally negotiated works.

In other cases, regulating access can be utilized to cut off connections that threaten the larger system of bridges that a creator has cultivated. While Twitch, like YouTube and Twitter, enables asymmetrical connections in that users can follow other users without both parties' consent, on Twitch, exchanges between viewers occur in real time during a live stream through messages in the chat box. For Simmers with larger followings, keeping up with these messages can be difficult, as many are sent at once, and they must balance the stream's composition in gameplay and conversation. In a space where feedback is received real-time, this can result in toxic or unwelcome rhetoric in the chat space, which in turn impacts the stream's focus and tone. To remove toxic interjections, content creators often utilize programs like "Nightbot" to auto-filter messages that contain slurs or keywords that are often associated with hateful content. However, some Simmers have employed additional tactics for regulating access.

In the Twitch clip to the left, Xmiramira discusses her community's system for blocking racism in a Twitchcon panel titled "How to Grow and Navigate Twitch as a Streamer of Color."

Here, Xmiramira speaks about negotiating with her audience to utilize a system for locating and blocking racist messages and chat participants. "One of my emotes is actually a troll emote for when people come in and they say stupid stuff...I have a cock, a rooster hiding behind a bush...the community uses it to let me and the moderators know when is someone in the chat saying something slick" (00:00-00:28). The emote originated through a joke Xmiramira made upon an instance of racism, which serves to strengthen ties between her followers, as, through their system of ideas, they have understanding of the origins of the emote. (Emotes are regularly used to signal different messages, and streamers with large followings have custom emotes that their subscribers can use). Through using moderators and visuals (the rooster/cock emote), she regulates access to her stream to protect her community and the content they compose together. However, it is important to note that this system is not full-proof. Xmiramira says, "I know that it's a common practice for people to create dummy accounts...So what I would like Twitch to do is put more effort into penalizing the main accounts. I don't care if they're a small streamer or a big streamer, there are people regardless of size and notoriety and popularity that sit in their free time and harass people." (Grayson). Because Twitch has failed to address the underlying problem by banning IP addresses that these spam accounts use, individuals promoting racism can continue to create new accounts to attack streams with. This also serves as an example of one of the ways in which the System of Materials can exert influence into the System of Interpersonal Interactions. The content's interface can serve to afford or deny safety, ultimately providing more regulatory labor for the Simmer to manage.