Twitch Streamers Call To Boycott Platform, Launch Campaign To Protest Against Hate Raids

Twitch streamers have come up with #ADayOffTwitch, which calls for streamers to step away from the platform for a day as an act of protest against hate raids that have been impacting marginalized streamers and call out the streaming site for its inaction in preventing such raids from happening.

The campaign, which has so far gone viral on Twitter, is scheduled to take place on Sept. 1. Streamers on the livestreaming service will join the movement to support other content creators affected by hate raids.

To those not familiar with the term, hate raids are a form of sustained harassment in which several groups of malicious users launch bot and dummy accounts to jam and flood a streamer's account with abusive and hateful slurs and symbols.

As for the boycott, the idea came from Shineypen, LuciaEverBlack and Rek It Raven. In the duration of it, protesters aim not to log in to their accounts and take a break from creating or spectating Twitch streams.

If many participate in the #ADayOffTwitch campaign, Twitch would be compelled to listen and offer better support, particularly to creators affected by organized attacks and hate raids.

News of the new movement comes after the #TwitchDoBetter campaign, in which streamers reported the proliferation of awful user experiences on the popular platform. Most of the reports centered on how Twitch reportedly provided half-hearted protection against these kinds of harassment.

The company responded by rolling out several measures to protect streamers, including integrating channel-level ban evasion detection. However, it appears the problem persists since multiple streamers still encounter these abusive bots and users on their channels.

Twitch has tried to reassure streamers that it continues to work to solve the issues.

"No one should have to experience malicious and hateful attacks based on who they are or what they stand for," the company said in a tweet over the weekend. "This is not the community we want on Twitch, and we want you to know we are working hard to make Twitch a safer place for creators."

#ADayOffTwitch is gaining more support from streamers as it nears its launch date.

Meanwhile, Twitch has not yet revealed a definitive date for the release of the new set of improvements it said would curb hateful content on the livestreaming service.