Following a successful streamer strike earlier this month in protest of Twitch’s continued failure to adequately tackle the increasingly prevalent phenomenon of hate raiding, the company has filed a lawsuit against two individuals it has identified as persistent offenders.
Twitch’s raid feature was originally designed as a positive community tool, enabling streamers to redirect all viewers currently watching their broadcast to a target channel as an “easy way to share audiences”. However, malicious users quickly began exploiting the feature, setting up scores of dummy accounts and bots to flood other, often marginalised, streamers in order to dox, harass, and attack them while they work.
While Twitch has previously conceded it needs to “do more to address these issues”, the phenomenon has become so widespread in recent times that streamers organised a one-day strike early this month to protest a perceived lack of meaningful action by the company.
