Black Twitch streamers pen open letter asking platform to add more protections TwitchFollowing a recent surge of hate raids, Black streamers and leaders of the #TwitchDoBetter movement have penned an open letter to Twitch CEO Emmett Shear along with the senior leadership team in hopes of establishing new lines of communication to ensure the platform is \u201cless hostile.\u201d While hate raids on Twitch have reached \u201cunprecedented\u201d levels in recent weeks, targeting Black and LGBTQ+ streamers primarily, harassment issues on the streaming platform have been prevalent for many years. Despite the latest comments from Twitch, claiming \u201chate has no place\u201d within the purple brand, Black creators have unified as part of the #TwitchDoBetter movement to call out recent actions and demand further change. With Black History Month seeing a spike in hate raids on the platform, creators are demanding not only more transparency from Twitch staff, but for year-round initiatives to support marginalized communities. Our Safety team is actively reviewing reports and suspending users in violation of our TOS. Our legal team is also involved and actively investigating. We\u2019ve taken legal action against those who\u2019ve harassed our community in the past and continue to take these activities seriously \u2014 Twitch Support (@TwitchSupport) March 12, 2022 In response to recent activations during Black History Month, including a \u2018Black Brilliance Recommended Section\u2019 on the homepage, along with an \u2018Unapologetically Black and Fast\u2019 speedrunning broadcast, the open letter claims these are nothing more than \u201cperformative.\u201d \u201cAt a time when Black streamers continue to be harassed by racist users and left unprotected from online hate, these short-term, Black History Month initiatives are sorely inadequate,\u201d the statement read. \u201cThe celebration of Black brilliance and Black joy should not be limited to February.\u201d We are proud to announce Unapologetically Black and Fast! This speedrunning marathon celebrating Black Joy will occur Feb 12+13 and feature over 12 hours a day of speedruns. Submissions will be open Jan 19 \u2013 23! \u2014 Games Done Quick (@GamesDoneQuick) December 22, 2021 The group was left unsatisfied by Twitch\u2019s \u201cnebulous statement\u201d on March 12 in light of recent hate raids. Now, they\u2019re aiming to connect Twitch staff with impacted Black creators in new ways. First, the open letter called for \u201ceasily accessible and well-communicated incident feedback loops.\u201d Each step of the process following online harassment reports should come with \u201cprintable histories and timestamps, review status, and steps for resolution,\u201d the group explained. Another demand targeted moderation on Twitch, specifically for Black creators being harassed while featured on the home page. The full list of creator demands can be found here, though Twitch has \u201cnot offered a timeline\u201d for when they\u2019ll be addressed, \u201cif at all.\u201d Hey @Twitch Hate raids are ramping up again. You\u2019ve had a year to put things in place to keep your users safe. What are you doing about it?#TwitchDoBetter\u2014 \ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\ud83c\udf08RB\ud83c\udff3\ufe0f\ud83c\udf08 (@RaynebeauxR) March 11, 2022 \u201cTwitch has shown repeatedly that it is not willing to be transparent and cares more deeply about its public image than the safety of Black streamers,\u201d the statement added. \u201cTwitch should explore ways to boost the discoverability of Black streamers every day, provide support to Black creators featured on the Front Page every time, and ensure that Black creators feel safe doing what we love.\u201d You can support the #TwitchDoBetter movement and the aforementioned demands by backing the open letter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Black Twitch streamers pen open letter asking platform to add more protections TwitchFollowing a recent surge of hate raids, Black streamers and leaders of the #TwitchDoBetter movement have penned an open letter to Twitch CEO Emmett Shear along with the senior leadership team in hopes of establishing new lines of communication to ensure the platform […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}