Twitch suffered a setback after the chat was in its own official channel full of hateful comments during the participation awards ceremony.
As part of Twitch’s celebration of his community, he held a participation award on January 23 to commemorate the work of their streamers and the community.
The stream focused on using Twitch chat as a direct medium between the hosts and viewers. But while the event was going on, some, including composite streamers, criticized Twitch for ineffectively moderating the messages in the chat.
Twitch has been criticized for making hateful comments excessive.
Twitch partner and variety streamer negaoryx called the platform to make the chat ‘full’ of hate speech and harassment towards the guests and host of the awards.
‘I am unfathomably angry at the lack of protection and care Twitch shows its marginalized creators, ”she said.
I am unfathomably angry at the lack of protection and care @Twitch shows its marginalized creators.
FASHION YOUR CHANNELS. Maintain your own terms of service. I can not even watch and enjoy this stream because I spend my time reporting every hateful, harassing remark I see.
– negaoryx (@negaoryx) 23 January 2021
‘Users in the chat speak hate speech and harass the guest streams. 3 mod names in the chat list, but since I watched it, ZERO messages have been removed.
‘I can not even watch and enjoy this stream, because I spend my time reporting every hateful, harassing remark I see. How difficult is it to get even ONE person to regulate these official Twitch streams? ”
MsAshRocks, who appeared as the last guest in the stream, also encouraged Twitch to combat hate speech. She said: ‘I mentioned an oblique fundraiser for [BLM] protesters and they became wild LMAO. ”
I mentioned a veil of fundraising for protesters and they went wild LMAO
BLACK LIVES MATTER. I will always use my platform to shout the hell out of it.
FASHION YOUR CHATS.
I had an explosion and appreciate that my community is spreading love in there! 🥲🧡 https://t.co/4ZlvzkDNbV
– Ashley💋 (@MsAshRocks) 23 January 2021
Tanya “CypherofTyr” DePass, Director of Non-Profit Gambling Diversity, I Need Various Games, echo the calls, as she put it: “That’s why I never watch the actual Twitch / Twitch Gaming channels, but keep it on mine so we have a safe place to watch.”
Another Twitch partner, Imperial, praised negaoryx for the statement and described the situation as a “systemic problem” within Twitch.
This is a systemic issue for @twitch and I’m grateful if people like it @negaoryx talk about it.
Years. Literal years. I had to call the local police after threatening threats, so many racist remarks and usernames on which I saw no action. Months of constant harassment. Do better. https://t.co/s6LkS9gYPd
– Imperial (@Imperialgrrl) 24 January 2021
She said: ‘I had to call the local police after threats, so many racist remarks and usernames on which I could do nothing. Months of constant harassment. Do better. “
Twitch has not yet publicly responded to the situation.
This was not the only debacle out of the stream. It turns out that one of the awards was accidentally handed out to a bot account, rather than a real person.
It was a tumultuous few days for the platform as users condemned their decision to ban a 15-year-old streamer with 90,000 followers because he made his account when he was 13 years old. Meanwhile, other top streamers on the platform, who also made their account as young as 13, went unpunished.