Twitch sues organizers of ‘hate raids’ in Cali District Court

Twitch is taking a strong stand against organized harassment campaigns, widely known as “hate raids,” which have proliferated in recent months by filing complaints against two possible attack coordinators.

In a complaint filed on September 9, steam giant Twitch launched legal action against two anonymous individuals suspected of being the leaders of the ongoing “hate raids”. With the platform’s “raid” feature, which allows streamers to redirect their viewers to another stream, bad faith actors can channel masses into a harassment campaign to another channel. These users usually don’t come with good intentions; they often hurl insults, slurs and obscenities en masse at the streamer they are sent to. While hate raids have been a problem on Twitch for some time, the problem has swelled this summer.

Early August, marginalized streamers rallied the hashtag #TwitchDoBetter on social networks. On September 1, in an effort to get Twitch to act, streamers boycotted the platform for a day. It seems to have had an impact, both on the conversation and on the bottom line. Twitch traffic for #ADayOffTwitch was about a fifth less than a normal day.

Twitch has taken some steps to mitigate hate raids in light of the new attention, including instituting sensors to automatically detect users who evade bans. The company has also started banning individual violators (which, as you can imagine, is a task that will never end). Now, the company is trying one of the biggest ban hammers on the planet: the United States justice system.

Yesterday’s costume, which Twitch provided to Kotaku, appoints two anonymous people who operate under the usernames CruzzControl and CreatineOverdose. The lawsuit alleges that CruzzControl and CreatineOverdose helped promote, organize and engage in large-scale hate raids. a extensive Washington post report detailed how and where hate raids are organized, not on Twitch itself, but on underground Discord servers, where users can operate away from Twitch’s scrutiny.

Twitch believes CruzzControl is based in the Netherlands, while CreatineOverdose is believed to live in Austria. Twitch does not yet know the legal name of either user. Both users would operate under a variety of usernames, with the latter showing mind-blowing creative genius with handles like CreatineReturns, CreatineBanEvades, and CreatineReported. Since it’s incredibly easy to create a new account on Twitch, banned users can quickly revert to their dastardly behavior. Banners Recount Kotaku last month that raising the bar to create a new account, such as forcing users to sign up with a registered phone number, would be one of the most effective ways to end hate raids for good.

“Although we have identified and banned thousands of accounts in the past few weeks, these players continue to work hard to find creative ways around our improvements and show no intention of stopping,” a spokesperson said. of Twitch. Kotaku in a report. “Hate and harassment have no place on Twitch, and we know we still have a lot of work to do, but we hope these combined actions will help reduce the immediate and unacceptable damage that targeted attacks have inflicted on our community. “