Official Twitch channel gets hate raided by racist bots

Twitch’s official gaming channel was hate raided during their broadcast of the Xbox Games Showcase, adding to the problem that has been popping up more and more on Twitch.

Twitch has had a massive problem of streamers, big and small, being attacked by bot accounts spamming racist or otherwise offensive messages in chat. These ‘hate raids’ have been condemned by Twitch, and although they announced a plan of action to curtail the problem, streamers are still calling on them to do more.

Twitch star streamer Hasan Piker said that he wanted a stronger response from the company, and fellow streamer TriHex has demanded Twitch take action after being hate raided himself.

Twitch’s own channel was now attacked, bringing the problem right to their own front door.

Twitch Gaming gets hate raided

Twitter user PhoenixYani noticed a hate raid occurring live on Twitch’s own gaming channel. Twitch Gaming was hosting the Xbox Games Showcase, which shows off Xbox’s newest titles when the hate raid messages came flowing into the chat.

Phoenix said “maybe they’ll do something now”, as the problem of hate raids has come right to Twitch’s official account during a live stream in collaboration with Xbox.

One of the suggestions TriHex made after he was hate raided was to only allow accounts with 2-factor authentication to send messages in the chat, that way bots can’t spam messages.

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He said, “I advocate a two-factor authentication toggle be added — only 2FA accounts can send messages. Add a separate option for broadcasters to choose if any posts from non-2FA (bots) get deleted upon toggle as well.”

Twitch itself has recommended that streamers use the tools available to them to try to prevent these hate raids, such as blocking terms. However, this has proven difficult, as the bots can use an endless variation of characters to get around any blocking protections.