After an onslaught of anti-LGBTQIA+ raids on the streaming service, Twitch announced that legal action is proceeding against those who engage and promote hate speech towards streamers.
While measures like phone number authentication and verified email addresses for users have been taken to prevent accounts from spawning for the purposes of hate raids, streamers are still sadly struggling with harassment on a daily basis and there has been a recent surge in the frequency of these abhorrent encounters. "Got massively hate raided on Twitch last night. A pathetic mass tantrum full of the usual boring transphobia," said Stephanie Sterling. "This sh*t sucks. It takes the wind out of our sails. It’s exhausting to protect our community out of nowhere," affirmed KoolySmiley.
After investigating why these attacks have suddenly spiked, the community found a common source. Cozy.tv is a conservative streaming site spearheaded by CEO Nick Fuentes and the site has been hosting the raids and the abuse against LGBTQIA+ streamers. In a statement, Fuentes expressed his satisfaction with the raids, saying that it is "delicious to see the seething and panic-stricken transgender individual, the panic-stricken libtard" (via Dexerto).
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An absolute example of a human being, don't you agree? Unfortunately for Fuentes, Twitch has now addressed the hate raids that have been carried out on his order and what it intends to do to stem the tide.
"Over the past 24 hours, bad actors have been coordinating off-Twitch to target women and LGBTQ+ members of our community with spammy and hateful chat messages. Hate has no place on Twitch, and we’ve identified and suspended the Twitch accounts of the individuals participating," explained Twitch. "Our legal team is also involved and actively investigating. We've taken legal action against those who've harassed our community in the past and continue to take these activities seriously." Twitch also added that those concerned about future attacks should ensure that settings like the aforementioned authentication and verification measures, followers-only chat, slow mode and allowing raids only from friends are switched on.
"Please continue to channel ban, report and block any cases of harassment you see, and know that we are working diligently to take action as quickly as possible," concluded the company.
Featured Image Credit: Artem Podrez via Unsplash, TwitchTopics: Twitch
