Twitch streamers plan to hold a one-day shutdown in hopes of unveiling a practice called “hate raids,” Axios reported Monday.
The shutdown day, which went viral on Twitter via the hashtag #ADayOffTwitch, will take place on September 1st. Platform streamers are involved in the movement to support those affected by “hate raids,” in which groups of malicious users send fictitious accounts and bot to fill a streamer’s chat with abuse, according to the Washington Post .
Raids are often aimed at users of marginalized communities with floods of insults and hateful symbols.
Users began posting their experiences Monday before on the hashtag #TwitchDoBetter, started by RekItRaven and other streamers.
Raven and other platform streamers say Twitch has been negligent in not correcting the problem.
“Every marginalized identity creator I know has at least one story, the baseline, even if they aren’t transmitted regularly,” he told the Post. “The most terrifying thing is that hatred is addressed to everyone equally. Size, frequency, status: nothing matters. They look for the marginalized identity and go to work ”.
I want to share some information I learned after this foray into AM hatred. #TwitchDoBetter
1. My chat has been in fan-only mode and the raid started seconds after following “creatineoverdose” and posted a strange message to my chat (I guess I’ll see what they could send) 1 / pic.twitter.com/CvpB7MDZ8b
– karen – #BlackLivesMatter now more than ever (@thesistakaren) August 19, 2021
While Twitch has made an effort to remove bot accounts in the past, its moves did not significantly affect fictitious accounts targeted at marginalized users, the Post reported.
“I think it’s important to come together in a show of solidarity with those who have been affected by these hate incursions,” Raven told Axios.