The Real Reason #TwitchDoBetter Is Trending On Twitter
Warning, linked Tweets and quotes may contain offensive and harmful language.
#TwitchDoBetter has been trending on Twitter due to an influx of racist bots "hate raiding" streamers on the site. As reported by Dextero, Twitch's terms of service condemn "hateful conduct," however the company has historically had plenty of issues with hateful and racist content on its platform. Twitch does not have a strong track record of dealing with the more shady aspects of its platform. Most recently, some unknown person or group is creating a large number of accounts to harass streamers, specifically Black streamers.
Twitch Affiliate Solo tweeted a screenshot of their chat after the bots invaded, all similarly named and all spamming the same racist remark. The bots used a misspelled version of George Floyd's name in order to slip past Twitch's auto-filters. The mention of Floyd, who was killed by a police officer in 2020, was likely meant to draw ire from streamers. Solo isn't the only streamer from a marginalized group to be "hate raided" recently.
RekItRaven retweeted Solo, writing, "and it's happened again. This is absolutely enough. If you're taking 1/2 of our income then why are marginalized people still subject to lackluster safety protocols?" RekItRaven encouraged people to support creators of color with #TwitchDoBetter. Solo was able to use a third-party tool like Commanderroot to deal with the spamming bots, but the need for an outside tool only shows the flaws in Twitch's system. In light of recent incidents, creators are calling for the support of the community.
Pushing for Twitch to be better
While Twitch is probably not directly responsible for the hate raids, it is responsible for making a safe platform for its users and streamers. Chonki on Twitter called for the platform to not only improve its safety features but to pay streamers more as well.
Chonki wrote, "All of my friends are getting hate raids lately. #TwitchDoBetter. Make the platform safe for us, first and foremost. And give us a bigger cut of the revenue as well. The amount of trolls and harassment marginalized streamers put up with does not make 50% sub revenue worth it."
Twitch has not made an official response to the hashtag or the hate raids at this time. Tofi, another streamer, wrote on Twitter, "We shouldn't have to fear pressing the go live button." He went on to say that streamers shouldn't have to plan out strategies for when they get hate raided or spend hours putting words and their misspellings into a filter. Twitch holds the power in this situation because it owns the platform streamers use, even if Twitch needs streamers in order to have content. Hopefully, this call for Twitch to improve itself will actually inspire the service to protect its streamers from hateful actions, instead of focusing all of its energy on dealing with DMCA takedowns.