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Ever heard of Hate Raids? You’re lucky if you haven’t. Hate Raids are targeted attacks on Twitch TV aimed at marginalized streamers where masses of people spam the chat with hate speech.
Lately, the Hate Raids have gone automated and it’s resulted in anyone who isn’t a cishet white guy getting drowned in utter vileness, yours truly included.
So let’s look at that, and Twitch’s stunning inactivity on the matter. With contributions from Pleasantly Twstd and Cypher of Tyr!
Ah yes, the best thing about monday.
Jim: “I like streaming on Twitch”
Twitch hate raids: *”Allow us to introduce ourselves”*
The sheer obsession and lack of an actual personal life some one would need to have to coordinate all these raids says a lot about our society yet we live in one
I think including additional voices is really powerful. I had no idea this was going on (I don’t use twitch) and it is horrifying. Thanks for raising awareness on this, I will be ensuring everyone I know is aware as well.
“gays, we will sell you anything”
corporations during pride month be like-
JSS continues to have impeccable vibes.
Far right: “Stop the left’s cancel culture!”
Also far right: “Let’s cancel trans people!”
I think Twitch literally doesn’t care about anything ever unless it makes, or costs, them money
I watched PleasantlyTwisted’s stream for an hour that night. Quite a few of the names and profiles had her personal information. When a Twitch employee (who works in marketing, I think) saw all of it live and started taking down info to hand to the info to safety/security, the bots started making accounts to harass them as well. in a single hour, I swear I saw over 2000 accounts pulling this shit. Why Twitch has done nothing is fucking beyond me.
Long rant if you’re interested or have the time to read: It’s always interesting looking at the “Hate Raid” debacle on Twitch from the perspective of a Black person in their mid 20s. I grew up in the age where online console gaming really started to take off and become more common/mainstream. During the 360/PS3 era. The first time I ever played a game online was Gears of War 2. I love that game, and when I first started playing online, naturally I was excited about jumping into online play cause I logged about 300hrs on horde mode single player and offline modes. I felt that I was ready to play with other players online. And I was. I was doing great and having a fun time playing without team/party chat on. But the moment I turned it on…the amount of racial slurs and random homophobic…just like chanting was insane. I was about 13 maybe 14 at this time, so it’s not like I haven’t heard any of this shit so it was whatever. But of course, I’m not tryna hear that shit when I’m playing a game. It’s unnecessary. So I turned off the mic/audio, and that’s exactly what I continued to do for every online game I’ve played. But the fact that racism, homophobia, and just general hate speech has always been allowed (Yes I know you can report users, but as you know…that ain’t ever stop shit) it’s fuckin disgusting to say the least. And seeing how it’s pretty much grown and festered to where it’s at now in hate raids on Twitch…the gaming community has a very serious problem man. I’d love to start streaming on Twitch, but I don’t even wanna put myself through the wave of goofy racist fuck shit I’d possibly have to deal with. Yes, I’m 26 years old and racist nerds being racist nerds over a video game isn’t anything I haven’t dealt with before, it is what it is. It shouldn’t be what it is, but thems is unfortunately the breaks. I play games to just unwind and have fun. I shouldn’t have to “Grow a thicker skin” in order to enjoy streaming a fuckin video game. Nobody should. I think Twitch would genuinely want to stop this problem, but the problem is blatant hate and contempt for marginalized groups of people and PoC. This is a problem that has existed in gaming since online gaming really took off in the mid-late 90s or early 2000s.
Very smart move of you Jim to bring in the other voice. I feel like it brings even more power to the point, that twitch really doesn’t give a shit about its fan base, especially when they are LGBT or even a poc.
It’s pretty much why I haven’t even bothered trying to start doing a twitch stream service, because I know that I would probably get hate raids myself being a pansexual. Hell, I’m afraid YouTube might get this problem one day somehow, and have pretty much been too afraid to even begin what might be a fun time for my friends.
Commander Sterling is so good, I love when you show your wrestling clips
JSS, of all your side projects, I need you to know that being a wrestling heel is the one that I think best utilizes your talents you absolute fucking gem.
In the same way that Sterling says “Activision-Blizzard” instead of Blizzard, Twitch being shit makes a lot more sense if you call it “Amazon-Twitch”.
Marginalized people: hey we’re dealing with extensive, targeted harassment. Can we get some support from the platform we literally fund through out labor?
Twitch: have you tried not being so visible to bigots? We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas
“Stop eliminating me” might be the greatest thing ever said during a battle royal match. Well done.