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After streamers staged a 24-hour boycott on the platform in response to recurring hate raids, Twitch has finally started its legal clampdown on key offenders behind in-app harassment.
For RekitRaven and other key streamers behind the growing #TwitchDoBetter movement, itโs safe to say: congratulations, the platform has definitely responded.
Late last month, we covered a story explaining the anti-progressive trend of โhate raidsโ on Twitch, whereby bigoted users coordinate to hijack livechat feeds and spread targeted abuse.
Armed with triple figures in bot accounts, malicious profiles typically target streamers belonging to ethnic minority groups, the LGBTQ+ community, or women, and incidents had become worryingly regular in recent months.
For many whoโd been victimised, including RekitRaven, and those concerned about Twitchโs lacklustre efforts to address its growing toxic culture, โA Day Off Twitchโ provided a chance to take a stand and demand that Twitch become a more inclusive space for creators.
Twitchโs response to the boycotts
The 24-hour boycott organised by RekitRaven, LuciaEverblack, and ShineyPen reportedly led to the lowest engagement total on the platform in 2021.
Though some would-be participants were tied down by contractual obligations or sponsors which required them to stream, overall viewership still took a 15% dip from the previous week. Suffice to say, Twitch reacted promptly.
โOur teams have been working around the clock to update our proactive detection systems, address new behaviours as they emerge, and finalise new proactive, channel-level safety tools that weโve been developing for months,โ said a spokesperson.
.@RekitRaven, the Black @Twitch creator that started the #TwitchDoBetter hashtag, helped organize #ADayOffTwitch to protest the racial abuse & hate-raids her fellow Black creators were experiencing. If you're a Black twitch creator, you can share your story & call out #Twitch. pic.twitter.com/mdvk8sxC3a
— ColorOfChange (@ColorOfChange) September 9, 2021
However, Twitch has found that stamping out bots in the modern day is a bit like playing whac-a-mole. The second accounts are taken offline, nefarious coders will sprout hundreds in their place almost instantly.
For this reason, the company is switching up its approach and is now threatening legal action against those found to be partaking in hate raids.
Wasting no time on that front, a few notorious accounts linked to bot generation are already engaged in harassment lawsuits.
Nothing like a taste of federal action to weed out the trolls.
