Twitch sues two users involved in "hate raids"

Two Twitch streamers have been sued for what they call "hate raiding."

You may scratching your head, but what is a "hate raid?"

A hate raid happens when a malicious user raids a streamer's channel and spams their chat with homophobic, derogatory, racist messages.

Twitch has been plagued with what people are calling "hate raids." This has resulted in people having to limit their streaming functionality (i.e., limiting chat to sub-only). DefinedByKy was targeted by her first hate raid:

Twitch is taking legal action against two streamers who were involved in hate raids that have targeted people of color, marginalized groups, and the LGBTQIA+ communities. This news comes from WIRED, which stated that Twitch has filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Supreme Court for northern California.

The two users involved in the lawsuit are CruzzControl and CreatineOverdose, whom the company believes are from the Netherlands and Vienna. Twitch released the following statement on August 20 on Twitter:

"We hope this Complaint will shed light on the identity of the individuals behind these attacks and the tools that they exploit, dissuade them from taking similar behaviors to other services, and help put an end to these vile attacks against members of our community," a Twitch spokesperson told WIRED.

This lawsuit comes after a week after streamers have organized a boycott in protest of these hate raids. This boycott started on September 1, 2021, when the hashtags "#ADayOffTwitch" and "#TwitchDoBetter" resulted in a massive drop in viewership.

While this is a huge step for Twitch, streamers have stated that this should have been done a long time ago.

Twitch has taken mitigation measures to prevent these hate raids from happening. Some of these measures included the implementation of sensors and chat filters that block derogatory terms. Twitch streamers should still report instances of hate raids and keep copies of their chat transcripts and activity log in an effort to reduce hate raids in the future. More updates on the lawsuit will be published as soon as new updates come in.