Should Twitch Get Rid of the Raid Feature?
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Should Twitch Get Rid of the Raid Feature?
In a complaint filed on September 9, steaming giant Twitch lobbed legal action against two anonymous individuals believed to be leaders in the ongoing “hate raids.” Thanks to the platform’s “raid” feature, which allows streamers to redirect their viewers to another stream, bad-faith actors can funnel droves in a harassment campaign to another channel. Those users typically don’t arrive with good intentions; they often hurl slurs, insults, and obscenities en masse at the streamer whose channel they’re sent to. While hate raids have been a problem on Twitch for a while, the issue swelled this summer.
Yesterday’s suit, which Twitch provided to Kotaku, names two anonymous individuals who operate under the usernames CruzzControl and CreatineOverdose. The suit alleges that CruzzControl and CreatineOverdose helped promote, organize, and engage in hate raids on a large scale. An extensive Washington Post report detailed how and where hate raids are organized—not on Twitch itself but on clandestine Discord servers, where users can operate away from Twitch scrutiny.