Twitch streamers recently mounted a social media campaign with the hashtag #DoBetterTwitch. It allowed Twitch users to share their experiences being harassed on the platform, and in turn ask Twitch to improve its handling of such issues. A surge in bot-driven "hate raids" targeting women and minority streamers on Twitch is what led to the #DoBetterTwitch campaign. Given the gravity of the situation, Twitch has since responded by addressing streamer concerns and detailing its current efforts and plans.
To start, Twitch directly acknowledges the ongoing discourse surrounding "botting, hate raids, and other forms of harassment targeting marginalized creators." Twitch says that it recognizes these issues and that it needs "to do more." With that said, Twitch says that an "open and ongoing dialogue" regarding "creator safety" is a part of moving toward that goal. Twitch then says thank you to the creators that shared their "difficult experiences" on the platform. In other words, Twitch starts by stating that it's listening and will continue to listen.
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Twitch then describes the actions that it has already taken in response to the issue streamers have called attention to. It says that the team at Twitch has already discovered that there was a "vulnerability in [its] proactive filters" and that it has already issued an update to fix the issue. This fix is said to help detect hate speech in streamers' chats, which will assumedly be filtered going forward. It's unclear whether Twitch believes this will be effective against hate raids and bot harassment.
There are also plans in place to improve Twitch's systems in place to deal with harassment, ban evasion, and fake accounts going forward. Twitch describes these as "channel-level" detection and verification features. In other words, optional tools that streamers will be able to use to better secure their chats. These features are said to be made available later in 2021, with Twitch saying it wants to get them live as soon as possible.
Further, returning to the idea of communication, Twitch says that it's going to be reaching out to specific individuals to delve further into their experiences on the platform. It also asks community members to reach out using Twitch's UserVoice platform, where it collects feedback and suggestions. It isn't clear how these communication lines will be used to improve streamers' situations, however.
The response from Twitch is ultimately a familiar one for Twitch streamers who have dealt with harassment on the platform. That's not to say that Twitch isn't taking the issue seriously, but rather that it's slow and often unprepared for the shifting ways harassment comes through on the platform. Regardless, Twitch's fix is hopefully effective and its upcoming anti-harassment tools will arrive sooner than later, for Twitch streamers' sake.
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