Twitch Streamers organizing Boycott on Sept. 1st amid rise of “Hate Raids”

Twitch streamers are organizing a boycott of the platform in protest over hate raids that have been affecting marginalized streamers across the site for some time now, and inaction from Twitch on preventing them.

On September 1, a number of Twitch streamers are set to go on strike across the platform in a bid to push Amazon-owned Twitch to do more about hate raids and hate speech directed towards various marginalized streamers on the platform, who use tags related to gender, sexual orientation, race, disabilities, or others. The protest is being organized by streamers Rek It Raven, LuciaEverBlack, and Shineypen under the hashtag #ADayOffTwitch and are also asking viewers not to watch streams or log in to chat.

The news of the protest follows the #TwitchDoBetter campaign originally set up by Rek It Raven to encourage Twitch to act quickly after several marginalized streamers were being targeted by hate raids on the platform. Several streamers still seem to be on the receiving end of bots and users who inundate their streams with hateful slurs.

Since initially reacting to the #TwitchDoBetter campaign on Twitter in early August, the platform has tried to reassure streamers that it is continuing to work hard to mitigate the issues. The company tweeted on August 20,

“No one should have to experience malicious and hateful attacks based on who they are or what they stand for. This is not the community we want on Twitch, and we want you to know we are working hard to make Twitch a safer place for creators.”

While Twitch continues to work on its channel-level ban evasion detection and account improvements to combat hate speech and malicious behavior, the company has asked streamers to continue to report incidents the attacks in the meantime. Despite its assurances, many streamers feel that Twitch hasn’t acted effectively nor quickly enough to combat the hateful attacks being made on the platform.

Twitch hasn’t confirmed a specific date for the release of its latest set of improvements that it hopes will curb hateful content on the platform. Those involved in the protest will be hoping that the increased pressure will encourage Twitch to make releasing its additional tools and providing relief for its creators a top priority.