Due to recent hate raids targeting People of Color and LGBTQIA+ streamers, Twitch has filed a lawsuit against two users in the Northern District of California, according to WIRED.
Twitch Sued Two Hate Raiders
Twitch Sued Two Hate Raiders
Twitch Sued Two Hate Raiders
Twitch Sued Two Hate Raiders
These two streamers are Cruzzcontrol and CreatineOverdose, who reside in the Netherlands as well as Vienna, Austria, have been sued.
“We hope this Complaint will shed light on the identity of the individuals behind these attacks and the tools that they exploit, dissuade them from taking similar behaviors to other services, and help put an end to these vile attacks against members of our community,” a Twitch insider told WIRED.
By creating fake bot accounts and using them to harass streamers, these two users have violated Twitch’s Terms of Service.
Around a month ago, the video streaming service Twitch was subjected to an increase in harassment and intimidation tactics. According to WIRED, Twitch “has been building ‘channel-level ban evasion detection,” as a response to these attacks. The company also created new chat filters to filter out potential hate raid chat messages. As a result of these raids, Twitch claims to have banned thousands of accounts.
After banning the two users, Twitch claims they circumvented that ban by “creating new, alternate Twitch accounts and continually altering their self-described “hate raid code,” in order to avoid detection and suspension by Twitch,” the lawsuit claims. “Hate raiding community” that coordinates attacks on Discord, Steam, and elsewhere is accused of the two.
There are multiple Twitch accounts and thousands of bots involved in the hate raids, according to the complaint. These hate-based raids can be carried out by Cruzzcontrol and CreatineOverdose, according to the report. Cruzzcontrol alone is responsible for about 3000 bots.
“Twitch’s lawsuit details how CreatineOverdose, Cruzzcontrol, and their bots “could be used to spam Twitch channels with racial slurs, graphic descriptions of violence against minorities, and claims that the hate raiders are the ‘KKK.'”
Just over a week ago, Twitch streamers staged a boycott in protest of these hate raids and Twitch’s response. The “#ADayOffTwitch” boycott, which took place on September 1, resulted in a 5 to 15 percent drop in views across the site.
