#ADayOffTwitch was on September 1st, and now the data is in and it genuinely did make a difference to the ecosystem of the livestreaming website. The strike that many streamers took part in was in protest of the increased number of hate raids the platform has seen since August and into September. These Twitch raids are leading to communities being harassed and streamers being doxxed and so creators of all shapes and sizes stopped using the platform for a day to communicate their support for the affected content creators.
The big question that hung over the event is if the strike would make a difference to the platform. Asmongold, a World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV Online streamer had previously said that he didn't believe an event like this would make a real change to the service, and many others thought the same. However, when looking at the numbers the data now reveals that there was an actual decrease in the number of streamers online and hours watched.
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If you go to websites TwitchTracker or SullyGnome which details many of the statistics of Twitch's service, there was an overall decrease in the use of the platform for the day. Zach Bussey has been covering the effects of the #ADayOffTwitch on Twitter and he says that even with being pessimistic and removing all other potential factors of why the site might have been a little quieter on September 1st, there was at least a 5.4% drop in overall viewership. And that's absolutely a difference Twitch would have noticed.
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If you're not considering extenuating circumstances like newly YouTube partnered streamers like Dr Lupo and TimTheTatman, you can look at the data and see that the platform's peak viewership average dropped a million users on the day, from 4.5 million to 3.5. All these numbers stack up resulting in the third-lowest viewership stats of the entire year.
So what does that mean? Well it shows that even if it didn't so much help getting rid of the hate raids, that Twitch streamers have seen a tangible difference when they refused to stream for a day. Many people didn't think the protest would work, not because it wasn't a good cause but because in data, it would not make a difference. However, now we know there is a difference that can be made, it'll at least set a standard for other streamers in future to look back at and see that they can make a change to the site's ecosystem for just a day to put pressure on the platform.
Featured Image Credit: TwitchTopics: Twitch
