Twitch pursues two “hate raiders” linked to automated harassment campaigns

For much of the past month and a half, Twitch has fought a losing battle against a phenomenon called “hate raids.” These attacks see malicious individuals using an army of bots to spam a streamer’s chat with hateful language, and they almost always target creators of marginalized communities. This week, Twitch filed a complaint against some of the people involved in the harassment campaigns.

The lawsuit comes after a variety of Twitch streamers withdrew from the platform on September 1 to protest the company’s ineffective handling of the situation. The costume, first spotted by Wired, names only two defendants: CruzzControl and CreatineOverdose. Twitch does not identify the two individuals beyond their usernames, but notes that it believes they are both based outside of Europe.

In the complaint, Twitch alleges that CruzzControl is responsible for a network of around 3,000 bots that have been involved in hate raids against streamers in black and LGBTQIA + communities. In addition to flooding these chains with racist, homophobic and sexist spam, the company claims that CruzzControl has shown how bots work so that others can deploy them for the same purpose. Regarding CreatineOverdose, the company alleges that it linked them directly to several incidents, including an August 15 episode in which they claimed they were members of the “KK K”.

“We hope that this complaint will shed light on the identity of the individuals behind these attacks and the tools they use, deter them from engaging in similar behavior with other services and help put an end to these attacks. vile attacks on members of our community, ”he added. a spokesperson for Twitch said Wired.

The company said The edge the lawsuit is only part of the answer he’s planned to hate raids, with more platform-level action to come. “Our teams have worked tirelessly to update our proactive detection systems, address new behaviors as they arise and finalize new proactive security tools in the channels that we have been developing for months”, said a spokesperson for Twitch.

While the lawsuit has yet to end the hate raids, some of those most affected by them say it’s a step in the right direction for the company. ” I have hope ” Crow, a streamer whose Twitch handle is RekItRaven, said Wired. “The people behind this need to be held accountable for their actions. They terrorized hundreds if not thousands of people. If this were to happen in a physical location, we would expect the same. It shouldn’t be any different online.