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Twitch files lawsuit against two users over hate raids

Twitch files lawsuit against two users over hate raids

Streaming platform Twitch is suing two users who they believe have been a part of hate raids on its service.

As reported by Wired, the two users – Cruzzcontrol and CreatineOverdose – are believed to be residents of the Netherlands and Vienna respectively and both operate thousands of bot accounts that they use to harass streamers on the platform.

Cruzzcontrol is believed to be behind around 3,000 bots, while Twitch alleges that CreatineOverdose has created bot software that can "spam Twitch channels with racial slurs, graphic descriptions of violence against minorities, and claims that the hate raiders are the ‘KKK.’”

“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 behaviours to other services, and help put an end to these vile attacks against members of our community,” a Twitch rep said.

This lawsuit comes in the wake of the #ADayOffTwitch protest, which saw streamers and users encouraged to not go on the platform for 24 hours between September 1st and 2nd in order to bring awareness to the lack of action from Twitch in response to harassment.

Data from analytics service SullyGnome shows that this resulted in a 21 per cent dip in peak viewership week-on-week.


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.