Following a recent increase in hate raids on Twitch, the Amazon-owned streaming service has now responded. Following a co-ordinated attack through an external site run by far-right white nationalist Nick Fuentes - one which primarily targeted women and LGBT+ streamers - Twitch's legal team is now investigating.
Addressing this in a Twitter thread, Twitch Support confirmed:
"Over the past 24 hours, bad actors have been coordinating off-Twitch to target women and LGBTQ+ members of our community with spammy and hateful chat messages. Hate has no place on Twitch, and we’ve identified and suspended the Twitch accounts of the individuals participating."
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Twitch Responds to Recent Hate Raids
Detailing this further, Twitch advised its safety team is "actively reviewing" reports and suspending users, taking legal action against those directly involved. As such, they recommended streamers enable several settings, such as "dial up AutoMod to L3, turn on Followers-Only and Slow Mode, enable email and phone verification, and only allow Raids from friends."
While some disagree with using Follower-only mode - claiming it'll stifle new viewers and new streamers - many were broadly supportive online of Twitch's response, though others believe this doesn't go far enough. We'll keep you informed with further streaming news as it happens.