Twitch logo application on the screen of a tablet. Image: AFP/Martin Bureau
Video game platform Twitch on Wednesday vowed to battle “hate raids” in response to complaints about harassment of women and players of color.
The Amazon-owned platform for sharing video gameplay and commentary said that it updated filtering tools to better detect hate speech in chat forums and that more improvements are on the way.
Hate raids involve overwhelming streamer comment boards with abusive remarks, sometimes using automated or “bot” accounts.
“We’ve seen a lot of conversation about botting, hate raids, and other forms of harassment targeting marginalized creators,” Twitch said in a string of tweets.
TECHNOLOGY
TECHNOLOGY
TECHNOLOGY
“You’re asking us to do better, and we know we need to do more to address these issues.”
The posts came in response to complaints about racist, sexist, and anti-gay onslaughts aimed at Twitch streamers who don’t appear to be straight, white and male.
