Twitch promises to take action after racist bots target Black streamers TwitchAfter several days of broadcasters petitioning Twitch to address the recent influx of racist bots and hate raids, the streaming platform has finally issued an official response, promising users it will \u201cdo better.\u201d The hashtag #TwitchDoBetter has become prevalent on Twitter over the past few days. The phrase, coined by streamer RekItRaven, is meant to bring attention to the shocking amount of racist bots that have cropped up on the site, which bombard streamers of color with hateful messages in a seemingly endless tirade. Various bot accounts have managed to bypass Twitch\u2019s pre-existing protocols in regards to Community Guidelines in several ways \u2014 one of which included misspelling the late George Floyd\u2019s name as a means of harassing Black content creators, effectively going under the radar. Two days after Raven\u2019s initial tweet coining the hashtag, Twitch has published an official response to the shocking and deplorable behavior from the creators of these bot accounts. Content warning: The tweet below contains offensive language. Reader discretion is advised. And it’s happened again. This is absolutely enough. If you’re taking 1\/2 of our income then why are marginalized people still subject to lackluster safety protocols?#TwitchDoBetter <\u2013 use the hashtag, don't just retweet https:\/\/t.co\/aYin88chwl \u2014 Raven's Not Here. (@RavenousTales_) August 9, 2021 In their statement, Twitch claimed that they \u201cwere able to identify a vulnerability\u201d in their protective filters, and have implemented an update to better detect hate speech. The platform is also launching \u201cchannel-level ban evasion detection\u201d and \u201caccount verification improvements\u201d later in the year \u2014 meaning that it will be harder for random users to make multiple spam accounts. We're launching channel-level ban evasion detection and account verification improvements later this year. We\u2019re working hard to launch these tools as soon as possible, and we hope they will have a big impact. Check out more on our existing tools here: https:\/\/t.co\/Dku6eBhY72 \u2014 Twitch (@Twitch) August 11, 2021 \u201cWe\u2019ve seen a lot of conversation about botting, hate raids, and other forms of harassment targeting marginalized creators,\u201d Twitch wrote. \u201cYou\u2019re asking us to do better, and we know we need to do more to address these issues. That includes an open and ongoing dialogue about creator safety.\u201d Thus far, the general response to Twitch\u2019s statement has been fairly positive, although there are plenty of voices calling for further action to be taken and other changes made. We\u2019ve seen a lot of conversation about botting, hate raids, and other forms of harassment targeting marginalized creators. You\u2019re asking us to do better, and we know we need to do more to address these issues. That includes an open and ongoing dialogue about creator safety. \u2014 Twitch (@Twitch) August 11, 2021 Twitch\u2019s new policy also follows discussion of a \u201cSocial Media ID\u201d system, which would require users to provide legal identification for opening any social media account, effectively tying everything back to a single person. While the UK government has dashed a petition asking for such a system, Twitch\u2019s account verification process could be a step towards combatting hate on their platform \u2014 and perhaps act as a stepping stone for others to do the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Twitch promises to take action after racist bots target Black streamers TwitchAfter several days of broadcasters petitioning Twitch to address the recent influx of racist bots and hate raids, the streaming platform has finally issued an official response, promising users it will \u201cdo better.\u201d The hashtag #TwitchDoBetter has become prevalent on Twitter over the past […]<\/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-62383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62383","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=62383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}