Strike on Twitch: What’s Happening and Why?
Twitch’s growth over the past year and a half has been, quite simply, spectacular. From being a minority platform, it has become a service that only a couple of days ago gathered hundreds of thousands of people on the Ibai channel to see the debut of Lionel Messi at the Paris Saint-Germain. Some peaks exceeded half a million viewers. Not to mention the more than 164,000 viewers who, as I am writing, have turned to the popular streamer’s channel to find out about the last hours before the football market closes.
Twitch has reason to be very proud of its growthThis is indisputable, but along with that growth, some negative effects have also come. One of them has undoubtedly been the increased pressure on the part of rights managers to prosecute and punish the reproduction of protected content in live broadcasts on the platform. This, as we told you last year, led to an unexpected wave of reprimands to streamers from June last year.
The worst effect of its growth, however, is found in the arrival of certain types of users who, instead of joining the platform by accessing the channels that interest them and leaving aside those that are not, They have decided to transfer to Twitch a toxicity that, unfortunately, we have previously seen in other services and on social media. Their only objective is to intoxicate and attack and, like good predators, they have an eye when it comes to choosing victims.
We already told you a few days ago about toxic raids on Twitch, a problem that although it has always existed on the platform, started to intensify substantially in recent weeks, first in the Anglo-Saxon world, although later it has been extended to the rest of the platform. And as I said, they tend to focus on streamers from groups that are usually the habitual victim of hate campaigns, so the effects of them can be tremendously negative.
Tomorrow September 1 I will not open stream and I will not consume Twitch to join the strike against hate raids and bot attacks#ADayOffTwitch ❌ pic.twitter.com/oyh89qqa6d
– Elesky 🦋 (@ Elesky25) August 31, 2021
Toxicity on Twitch is not something new, it has been more than a year since Reckful’s suicide and, already at that time, it was evident that toxicity was a problem, and that platforms have a moral obligation to do everything in their power to combat it. I repeat, a year has passed, and although Twitch did raise certain changes to the moderators (changes that depend on them, of course, Twitch has not provided tools to facilitate it) and nothing more.
A few weeks ago #ADayOffTwitch began to take shape, a measure of pressure that streamers and viewers use to remind Twitch that it has a serious problem with toxicity. Thus, if you discover that part of the channels that you usually watch are not going to broadcast on September 1, this is precisely the reason. And the call is not only aimed at streamers, Twitch users are also asked not to access the platform for the whole day.
In the absence of a few hours to start #ADayOffTwitch, the message seems to be reaching quite a few streamers of all sizes, that in their majority yes that they are pronouncing itself in favor of the same. However, the level of response is not too high, at least for now, so it is still unknown if the call to attention to the service will be noticed or, on the contrary, if at the end of the day the Twitch numbers will reflect that activity has hardly been affected.
I, personally, do intend to join #ADayOffTwitch. As I was saying, more than a year ago, following Reckful’s suicide, I demanded that the platforms take action and, although I know it is complicated, I do not have the feeling that Twitch has taken it too seriously. And personally, seeing hundreds of bastards with swastikas as avatar flooding chats with hatred and more hatred, is far from the platform that I like so much.
And yes, I repeat, I know that the platform does not have it easy, but it is essential that you do something about itOtherwise, if those responsible for the toxic raids see that they can continue to act with impunity, and that due to their actions there are streamers who decide to leave (temporarily or permanently) the platform, they will feel stronger than ever and will end up converting Twitch into yet another pit of hate.
Tomorrow I join #ADayOffTwitch In protest of hate raids and bot attacks, there will be no streaming all day and I will not consume twitch either. pic.twitter.com/vkBAWgmhri
– Tonacho Fonty (@tonacho) August 31, 2021
