Twitch allows streamers to limit commenters by phone number

Twitch streamers may soon be able to restrict who can and cannot participate in the chat. According to Twitch watcher Zach Bussey, the streaming giant plans to add extended features that would allow streamers to require a phone or email verification of the commentary.

For most of the summer, Twitch streamers have struggled with a plague of “heinous raids. “Thanks to the platform’s” raid “feature, which allows streamers to redirect viewers to another channel, dishonest streamers can send crowds of commentators to other channels as part of campaigns. Coordinated harassment Most of these users come with the worst possible intentions and often flood the channels with waves of disgusting insults and slurs. The Washington Post reported that these campaigns are organized outside of Twitch, on underground Discord servers.

Banners Recount Kotaku that forcing users to register with a phone number would be one of the most effective methods of stopping hate raids, far more effective than email verification, which already exists on the platform. It’s easy to create alternate email addresses, so while checking email for chats is a speed bump, it doesn’t stop hate raids in their tracks.

As it stands now, since it’s so easy to create new accounts on Twitch, banned streamers can simply create a new account and go straight back to the chat. Sometimes they do it with a cheeky insistence. For example, Twitch filed a complaint earlier this month against two anonymous users whom he claims to have organized hate raids. One of those users, who would operate under the nickname CreatineOverdose, would have returned with nicknames such as CreatineReturns, CreatineBanEvades, and CreatineReported.

While this user may come back as a hypothetical CreatineFrakensteinsMonster, these new channel-level tools could prevent CreatineFrankensteinsMonster from commenting on specific channels.

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Here’s how it would work: Once these tools are live, if you’re a streamer, you’ll be able to ask viewers to verify a phone number or email address before leaving comments. You can make them need to do this if they are chatting on your feed for the very first time, if their account hasn’t been active for a long time, or if they’ve been following you within a specific amount of time ( for example, a matter of hours or days). You can also set exceptions for VIPs, moderators and subscribers.

The German streamer Dracon shared a screenshot what these options would look like on the Twitch user interface. Bussey got a screenshot also, citing an anonymous source.

It is not known when these anti-harassment measures will be implemented on a large scale, or if they are officially in preparation. Twitch declined to comment Kotaku on the file.