A Day Off Twitch: My Thoughts on the Current Climate of Twitch and Streaming

If you run in the same circles I do, this social issue has been in your face for months now. For those of you who don't know, racial minority creators and LGBTQIA+ creators have been targeted in bigotry and hate for a long time, but things have ramped up on Twitch in the past few months with the introduction of "hate raids" and "hate botting."

The sad thing is: Twitch has done little to nothing about it.

In fact, independent app developers have had to step up to the plate and attempt to provide creators a solution that might protect them from these attacks as a result of the inaction by the platform.

Now, I understand that Twitch is a huge corporation with tons of moving parts, and things sometimes take longer to move up the chain of command and work towards implementation. However, this is a safety issue that has been going on for MONTHS now, and it would be nice to at least hear more from Twitch than a "We hear you, and we support you..."

Now, I am not a minority creator. I am a White, cisgender, middle-class American man. I am not unaware of the privilege that I am sadly born into just by the color of my skin. But even so, this issue irks me to my core. Over the past several weeks, I've had several of these follow bots and hate bots follow my account and hang out in my chat - lurking, and waiting. One night, I raided a friend of mine to show him some support after ending my own stream, and these bots began spewing hate, bigotry, and racism in his chat because he was an African-American.

I was heart-broken.

What I was wanting to be a positive and uplifting action turned into a hurtful, and damaging interaction in his space of creativity and positivity. I was able to DM him later and apologize profusely for what had happened, and he brushed it off because he knows me and the kind of man I am. But it was a damaging experience that could've been avoided had Twitch done something about the accounts that were creating these hate bot accounts or at the very least given their creators better safety tools that would nip stuff like that in the bud.

So my initial reaction was to participate in #adayofftwitch and invest in it on socials and really sling some mud at Twitch...

However, my friend, AznSlickSlaya, shared that majority creators "Getting off twitch because of hate raids. Makes me go "yaay another non marginalized person fight my battles for me." and "I'm a minority. Been bullied most of my younger years. And I refuse to let them Bully me off the site. Even for 24 hours. They will not win. I won't let them. Because that's what they want. To be made center of attention. To push people off. I will place as many tags as I can."

A few other non-marginalized creators, Harris Heller, encouraged creators who wanted to hurt Twitch's bottom line to completely cease creating on Twitch instead of just taking a day off. Others still, like EurekaFresh, pointed out that running a 24 hour stream with the image above in it would be an even more effective way of protesting since it would cause Twitch to have to maintain the load of all these AFK streams without making any revenue from them.

So, what is there to do now?

In the end, I believe all these perspectives are correct. It is not my job or place to take up the mantle of the marginalized and fight their battle for them. I CAN, however, respond based on my own principles.

I am frustrated mostly by the lack of communication and transparency on Twitch's part throughout this entire mess. If we would hear even an iota of information about tools they're working on, features they're getting ready to release, or even small steps they are taking to tracking down and taking punitive action on the source accounts of these issues... I feel like everyone would be much more inclined to give Twitch the benefit of the doubt. But we haven't. They've given a vague pat-answer in the "We hear you, and we support you" tweet, just a few days before pushing their "Subtember: special subscription rates!" event and drawing attention to their money-making ventures in earnest.

I'm angry that, because we don't have the tools or features to fight back, my friend got hurt. I'm frustrated at the seemingly apathetic approach Twitch is taking to this has led to others having to pick up the slack. I'm sickened by a company that cares more about the bottom line and making a buck than pouring their resources into creating a safe environment for their creators to continue generating revenue for them.

I personally took the day off Twitch. And there are many more days off to come. As I search for a suitable home for my content, though, I can say with full certainty, that I feel good about sticking to my principles and bringing my content elsewhere. I will still support the marginalized creators like my friends AznSlickSlaya, Pappadopolis84, EpicDebt, and many others - but I'll do so by taking my subs off Twitch, and putting that money directly into their pockets.

I won't fight their battles for them, but I also won't be creating content somewhere I can no longer - in good faith - call "home."

Buh-bye, Twitch. Smell ya later!