In 2021, hate raids on various streamers caused a huge outcry on Twitch. Although the platform took several measures against it and a user even provided a tool that is supposed to combat hate raids, they are back now. This time, they pose a real problem, as they are coming neither from bots nor from Twitch, but from outside. MeinMMO reports.
What are hate raids?
- Hate raids are primarily bots sent to streamers to insult them. Hate messages are spammed in the chats, flooding the normal messages from the streamer’s fans. Sometimes, however, real people are also incited by other Twitch streamers to carry out hate raids.
- The well-known streamer Pokimane became a victim of such a hate raid. The Twitch streamer JiDion sent his viewers to spam “L+Ratio” in her chat. This means something like a loud booing. He was ultimately permanently banned by Twitch for this.
- On September 1, a strike was even initiated, where a huge number of streamers simply skipped their streams. They wanted to send a message to Twitch that the hate raids cannot continue like this.
- Now, hate raids are back, but this time they consist solely of real people behind the accounts. They send transphobic and racist messages in the Twitch chats. Additionally, they come from an external livestream platform “cozy.tv” (via Twitter). This platform was founded in 2021 by Nick Fuentes, a far-right white nationalist.
CEO Nick Fuentes celebrates the hate raids of his platform
What does the founder of cozy.tv say? Nick Fuentes made a statement after the situation was brought to his attention (via streamable.com). He had a broad grin on his face and metaphorically stated:
Hmm, it’s so delicious. I’ll eat it all up. It’s so delicious for me to see: The boiling with rage and panicking transgender individuals. The panicking leftists when there is no moderator, admin, or report button, or a support ticket they can follow. There is something that makes it so fulfilling and satisfying.
Nick Fuentes
Fuentes is thrilled that there is nothing that can be done about it and that there are no moderators for his livestream platform. He continued to say that he is very proud of his platform and relishes the fact that people now have to crawl to him.
Cozy.tv has now added a report button. These reports are “of course taken very seriously,” Fuentes joked, and “they will certainly not be deleted directly”.
Reports about hate raids have already been received by the “moderation team”; however, the users who sent these raids did not violate any platform guidelines, so no action is being taken.
What does Twitch say about the new hate raids from cozy.tv? Twitch has spoken out on Twitter and emphasized that hatred has no place on the platform. Furthermore, the Twitch accounts created by those who participated in the hate raids were banned. Additionally, Twitch will take legal action against anyone involved in the incident.
Whether cozy.tv will continue to exist after the incident and whether the hate raids will stop now remains to be seen.
