“There need to be harsher consequences for people who do these kinds of predatory things on the platform,” Nati Casanova, who goes by ZombiUnicorn on Twitch, told The Verge. If you think there are a lot of sexual assault allegations coming out right now, just know there’s so many more people that are still too afraid to speak up.- pokimane June 22, 2020 They say the company is giving these men a powerful position from which they can prey on fans or other streamers and that Twitch is failing to ban verified streamers despite credible reports of harassment or assault. That checkmark of approval is a particular source of frustration among streamers criticizing Twitch’s inaction. Twitch says that it manually reviews applications, and not every applicant is approved, even if a user meets all the criteria that determine eligibility. Streamers who are successful enough on their own and put in enough hours streaming on Twitch become eligible for Partner status, which grants a number of perks, from a purple checkmark showing a streamer is verified to promotional opportunities at events like TwitchCon. Many of the accused are also verified Twitch Partners. Several people said they met an abuser through Twitch or that misconduct occurred at a Twitch event or an afterparty at a Twitch convention. Others didn’t happen on Twitch directly but involve people in its community. Some of the stories involve incidents that happened on Twitch, such as men who were allegedly streaming while messaging underage fans for sexual photos. The men accused of harassment and misconduct range from streamers with thousands of followers to those with hundreds of thousands of followers or more. Twitch tightened its policies around harassment in 2018, but it’s not evident to many streamers that it’s had a real impact on enforcement. In 2012, Giant Bomb reported on sexual harassment at a Capcom tournament that was hosted on Twitch. Bloomberg called harassment “something female streamers have to deal with routinely” in a 2015 feature. A Fusion documentary looked at the sexist harassment a woman who is a top Hearthstone player faced on Twitch in 2016. In 2017, Kotaku said it was “incredibly easy” to find examples of harassment on the platform just by browsing around. Harassment and abuse issues have followed Twitch for years. But streamers are doubtful that Twitch is ready to take them seriously. The company has said it will investigate and potentially punish the accused users, and as of Wednesday night, it had begun issuing permanent bans. Their accounts have led to a growing demand for Twitch to do a better job moderating, protecting, and setting the tone for its community. “There need to be harsher consequences for people who do these kinds of predatory things on the platform.” A Medium post cataloging the recent accounts lists more than 60 people accused of misconduct, in many cases with accusations from multiple people. These streamers, mostly women, say others in the Twitch streaming community, mostly men, engage in abusive behavior. The stories span the industry, but one group is heavily represented: Twitch streamers. Wong is one of dozens of people who have come forward with stories of harassment, abuse, and assault in the gaming industry over the past few days. “You, as a company, minimized and dismissed my sexual harassment,” she wrote on Twitter.
According to Samantha Wong, who streams under the name Sampai, the person she’d reported for harassment was not only still allowed to attend Twitch events, but he was even given the opportunity to appear on segments on Twitch’s official channel.
“All assured me it would be handled,” he wrote on Twitter.īut a year later, the accused person was still being featured by Twitch. A Twitch VP who has since left the company, Justin Wong, says he escalated her allegations to Twitch’s CEO, the head of Twitch HR, and a VP who managed Twitch’s relationship with the accused person. When streamer Samantha Wong told Twitch that she had been sexually harassed by another person connected to the Twitch community, the report went all the way to the top.