Twitch today announced an important legal step forward in protecting its community at large against viewbotting services. Exploited by a small minority, these services have created a very real problem that has damaging effects across the entire Twitch community.
For those unaware, these bots are used to artificially inflate the apparent view count, follower count, and chat activity on a Twitch channel.
Sometimes these bots are used by a broadcaster who believes the perception of higher viewership and social activity will put them on the fast-track to success or Twitch partnership. Other times, bots are used to harass other broadcasters in order to attempt to deny them partnership, or get their channel suspended. All of this is enabled by bot services offered by a handful of sellers who make misleading claims for their own commercial benefit.
Starting today Twitch are adding a third layer to protect its viewers and broadcasters from the damaging effects of this kind of malicious activity by taking public legal action against seven of the most active sellers of viewbot services.
You can read the full Twitch Blog Post here.
And, from all of us here at Senshudo, can we whole-heartedly say "Thank you, Twitch" for finally taking a step in the right direction to clear out some of the more undesirable elements of the platform.