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San Diego Twitchcon showcased Twitch’s poor approach to safety

Earlier this month, Twitch held one of its popular annual conventions — Twitchcon — for its American fanbase in... Harrison | 25. October 2022

Earlier this month, Twitch held one of its popular annual conventions — Twitchcon — for its American fanbase in San Diego, California. The In Real Life Party, as Twitch described the popular event, hosted many fans, content creators, and streamers

However, things didn’t quite go as planned, and cracks started to show in Twitch’s approach to safety at its convention. Multiple personalities who attended the event posted about their experience, revealing that Twitchcon wasn’t exactly keeping up with the safety standards that would be expected from such a large event. 

Note: Some of the media in this article contain strong language and details of sexual assault. 

The greatest poorly set up pit of all time

The most criticized part of Twitchcon was the foam pit set up by Lenovo and Intel, in which streamer Adriana Chechik broke her back in two places after participating in one of the activities in the foam pit.  

The story has gained over a million views across all platforms, with multiple global news outlets reporting the incident. Some well-known Twitch personalities such as XQC and penguinz0 have also given their thoughts about the incident, saying that it was “the greatest poorly set up pit of all time” 

Chechik wasn’t the only person who was injured in the pit, as multiple other attendees shared Twitter posts about getting injured in the same pit. Eventually, the pit was shut down.

Stalkers and aggressors 

However, the foam pit wasn’t the only unsafe and problematic thing at Twitchcon in San Diego, and as a result, the streaming platform now faces serious allegations concerning the overall security of its events and care for its attendees. Not to mention the accessibility issues.

For instance, popular streamer Kaitlyn Michelle Siragusa, better known by her alias Amouranth, revealed that she encountered multiple instances of stalkers coming up to her during her attendance at Twitchcon. There were several clips of her addressing the issue, which quickly gained traction on the platform.

Another example is one of the most famous Twitch personalities, streamer xQc, who also had to deal with sexual harassment at Twitchcon. Following the event, xQc revealed on his stream that he was groped by an unknown woman at the TwitchCon party despite repeatedly asking the woman not to touch him.

Consequences 

Naturally, the community and fans expressed their outrage regarding the Twitchcon safety issues, and some even asked xQc to proceed with taking legal action against the assaulter. However, Twitch is the one who should be held accountable here, as the company clearly failed to ensure the safety of visitors at its own event.

And of course, this is not the first time that Twitch’s lax approach to the safety of its streamers seriously endangered them. In fact, it’s well-known that the platform has a stalker problem and that it has failed to help streamers deal with this life-threatening issue.

All of the safety issues combined with the recent controversies surrounding the sexual assault on the company’s female employees, as well as the changes in the platform’s revenue policy, led to the community starting a call for a boycott of the streaming giant, with #BoycottTwitch being shared by countless people across social media.

Header: Twitch