In September 2021, a successful streamer strike took place. Twitch and their continued failure to take tangible action against the harrasment epidemic drove people to organize a blackout protest under the hashtag #ADayOffTwitch, which culminated in Twitch filing a civil lawsuit against two people accused of “hate raiding.” The phenomenon has not stopped, but the main culprit has been exposed. A long list of people over on the alt-right streaming platform CozyTV are accused of coordinating a mass harassment campaign targeting the LGBTQIA+ streaming community on Twitch, and CEO Nick Fuentes is fine with it.
The LGBTQIA+ tag has been the focus of bigoted ire, according to streamer ‘EarthtoBre,’ who tweeted about her recent experience viewing the live stream of another Twitch user. By her account, a plethora of hateful spam was directed at @thejustryan. Blizzb3ar also suffered the same campaign as a visible queer streamer and supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Before litigation was on the table, the influx of harassment (primarily targeting BIPOC and LGBTQIA+) was met with an apathetic “use what we have available” non-response. Since then, Twitch has promised a more “proactive” approach to ensure streamer protection; phone verification was added just last year in order to cull hate raid spam botting. Considering doxing and swatting are more prevalent than ever before, a lot is at stake. @xProvexx wasted no time pinpointing the source of the hate raid and warned people to steer clear of the tag for now:
“There is an alt-right website called CozyTV streaming hate raids that they’re conducting on Twitch. Have an action plan in case they try to raid – currently targeting Women and LGTBQ+ creators,” he tweeted.
CEO Nick Fuentes is a biracial white nationalist, and self-admitted “proud incel” grifter whose response to people streaming their hate raid on his platform is, as predicted, reflective of his sensible worldview. A video clip documenting this pitiable response is available.
A “hate raid” is when streamer chat is flooded with the ugliest hate speech imaginable, enough to drown out any other attempt to use the chat. Much of the vitriol is transphobic in nature, focused on delegitimizing the gender identity of the streamer in the crudest possible manner. Virulent racism is also par for the course.
What is supposed to be a chill social space intended to cultivate support can become unusable and poisonous to the mental well-being of the content creator. Remember, this is the same content creator whose Twitch subscription income is being docked 50% because of their rapacious business model. A response from Twitch followed:
