Yesterday, you might have noticed your favorite streamers weren't actually streaming on Twitch on their normal schedule. That was all due to the #ADayOffTwitch protest, which streamers organized to draw attention to a rise in abuse aimed at marginalized streamers on the platform.
For the past several weeks, minority and female streamers have been subjected to "hate raids," where a swarm of bots invades a streamer's channel and spams the chat with hate-fueled slurs. This initially sparked the #DoBetterTwitch campaign to draw attention to the situation, and Twitch initially responded with an update to its proactive filters that should have shut hate raids down. But they didn't, and since then it's been a cat-and-mouse game between Twitch moderators and hate raiders figuring out new ways of bypassing Twitch's filters.
Streamers, meanwhile, were tired of being subject to regular abuse and escalated their hashtag campaign to take #ADayOffTwitch in protest. Organized by streamers Rek It Raven, Shineypen, and LuciaEverBlack, but soon joined by thousands more, the boycott was designed to hit Twitch in its bottom line by shutting down content for the day.
Related: PSA: Twitch Streamers Warn Of Raid-Triggering, IP-Logging Followers
Did it work? Well, not everyone took the day off, but it certainly made a dent. Yesterday’s #ADayOffTwitch protest had 5,000 fewer channels streaming during Twitch’s usual peak, according to Twitchtracker, and roughly one million fewer viewers.
Most spent their day off Twitch just taking it easy, but a few decided to address Twitch’s problems themselves. Nutty decided to use his time to create a hate-fighting bot that uses voice commands to lock down a stream’s chat and immediately halt a hate raid in its tracks. Nutty even gave the bot away to everyone for free to install in their channel.
In a statement to Eurogamer, a Twitch spokesperson said that Twitch is "working hard on improved channel-level ban evasion detection and additional account improvements to help make Twitch a safer place for creators." Whether that's enough to appease angry streamers subjected to near-daily hate raids is a larger question.
Next: More Major Streamers Should Be Supporting #ADayOffTwitch
