#ADayOffTwitch and #SubOffTwitch
“Twitch is where millions of people come together live every day to chat, interact, and make their own entertainment together.” - Twitch About
But right now, Twitch isn’t entertaining for everyone. Right now (and over the last decade) marginalized communities are becoming the targets of hate-filled attacks. These attacks may seem random, but underneath the surface, the implementation is organized and intentional. The sheer amount of people affected is mind-blowing but not surprising. I was followbotted a while ago shortly after seeing it happen in a mutual’s stream. Thankfully I was aware of commanderroot, a program designed by ONE person to combat the fake accounts that follow, help with mass banning, and execute mass blocking. However, some marginalized creators are completely in the dark about these attacks, simply because there’s been no official information from Twitch itself.
Here’s the twitter thread from Toxicidi who has been experiencing attacks since May, including pornographic clips, discord attacks, and followbotting, which is when a myriad of fake accounts following the streamer immediately:
Here’s another recent Twitter thread from Cypher, who streamed with no camera, just a voice:
And while we understand Twitch ultimately wants to support streamers by helping them make a living on the platform, not one of their official Twitch Twitter posts acknowledged these communities and creators throughout Pride month. They did however, announce a new feature: the animated emotes. They checked the boxes to repost some LGBTQ+ accounts and partnerships, Juneteenth panels, and then guess what? Another new feature. In July, coverage was limited to their Twitch birthday and the Tokyo Olympics. And do you know when they officially acknowledged people? August 11th, 2021. They added some vague, glory-born tweets, resumed to business as usual and didn’t post again to address or acknowledge concerns until August 20th, 2021.
If you’re wondering why content creators can’t just turn off raids or use different word-banning tools: here’s a nice little video explaining the reason why that won’t work. It’s just not that simple. The workarounds for malicious acts are more than capable of adapting to fit their agenda.
Thankfully, some of the bigger companies and organizations are picking up on the issues that have been presented—IGN, Dexterto, Kotaku, and the Washington Post. But it’s still not enough. The Twitter search of the phrase “hate raids” yields hundreds of comments about creators being attacked, some as this post was written, some minutes before.
If you’re looking to get involved, here’s the change.org petition outlining solutions.
If you’re looking to protect yourself as a content creator on Twitch, here’s an informative list on how to do just that, started by the Hate Raid Response on Twitter.
Until then, be safe, be vigilant, uplift marginalized creators, respect us and support us. The movement is happening Sept. 1st and we will not being participating in anything Twitch-related in solidarity.