Twitch streamers have been targeted by hate raids that involve bot accounts flooding their chats with abusive language, racial slurs, personal information, and even Nazi imagery. These instances have been increasing in number and more streamers have reported being targeted every passing day. As a result, the hashtag #TwitchDoBetter started trending.
Twitch responded with a series of tweets about how it wants to make the platform a safer place for marginalized streamers and that there is no room for the kind of abuse that’s been showered upon them. “We've been building channel-level ban evasion detection and account improvements to combat this malicious behavior for months. However, as we work on solutions, bad actors work in parallel to find ways around them—which is why we can't always share details.” It also encouraged streamers and viewers to keep reporting these accounts as it would help identify and remove “bad actors and their networks”. It would also further assist their tools in evolving.
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While Twitch has pledged to do it’s best to curb this abusive behaviour, a number of streamers have got together and decided to go off Twitch for a day. Spearheaded by streamer Rek It Raven, #ADayOffTwitch involves all associated streamers to essentially go on strike from streaming on the platform on September 1. The movement has gathered a sizable following, and messages of support have also poured in.
While it may not seem like much to some, the movement has the potential to make a dent in the daily viewership of the platform, and even push it to take some legitimate steps in addressing the issue. The movement also has a discord server in order to coordinate and make the maximum possible impact.
Stories of attacks against streamers have been growing frequent as of late. Only last week we reported that somebody tried to light Amouranth’s house on fire. In a series of tweets, she explained that there was a fire at the side of her house, but it was fortunately put out before any major damage was done. While no suspects had been apprehended, the authorities strongly suspected that it was a case of arson.
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