Twitch’s predatory problem

Content Warning: This article contains details on online child abuse.

Earlier this month, Bloomberg News published a detailed report containing in-depth information on how child predators have been using the streaming giant Twitch to prey on children.

The evidence included in this report dates back dates to October 2020 and indicates that more than 279 000 have been a victim of child predators.

Kids are not safe on Twitch 

The Bloomberg article starts off by retelling a story of two young girls who were streaming to a handful of viewers on Twitch. One particular viewer then asked the girls to place the camera in a particular way so that their whole bodies can be seen before asking them to do handstands and perform the girl’s favorite TikTok dances. Over the duration of 45 minutes, this particular viewer found the streams of four other young girls whose identities and ages were unknown and proceeded to follow them on Twitch. 

By looking at Twitch profile data, screenshots, and videos, an unnamed researcher presented in Bloomberg’s article was able to find at least 1976 accounts that follow young children, while hundreds of those accounts were following at least 1000 children or more on the platform. According to the analysis conducted by the researcher, alleged predators found an average of 673 children online every day in July of this year alone.

The research also found that these predators can entice children to perform suggestive dances that can include explicit acts. These predators browse through Twitch looking for new channels or streams with low viewers count and they surf through the stream looking for those who are clearly and visibly a minor. As the investigation showed, most times when a minor will make an account for fun, without realizing the potential dangers they put themselves in, these kids will go live to ideally no one.

Bloomberg explained that the researcher assembled databases of predatory Twitch accounts by manually identifying the live streams of young people and determining which of their followers also track other children. Due to the obvious nature of this disturbing stuff, the researcher has requested to remain anonymous. 

The Community’s Reaction

Many big names in the streaming community are just learning about how dire this problem is. However, these problems also exist on Meta’s platforms Facebook and Instagram, as well as on Google’s YouTube. However, the abuse on Twitch is an increasing concern mainly due to the increasing popularity of online games around the world. 

 

Twitch’s Response

Twitch has provided an official statement regarding the issue to Bloomberg by email, which read:

“Preventing child harm is one of our most fundamental responsibilities as a society. We do not allow children under 13 to use Twitch, and preventing our service from being used for harm is one of our biggest priorities.”

Twitch’s chief producer officer Tom Verrilli also commented: 

“Even one single instance of grooming is abhorrent to us, and if it’s valid, the data Bloomberg reference demonstrates that we are not offering the level of protection we strive for yet – which is deeply upsetting. This work is vitally important to everyone at Twitch, and we’ll never stop.”

Overall, this is an in-depth report which highlighted how it is easy to stream on Twitch and how the alleged predators can use the platform to hunt for children. It is a bone- chilling report to come across but it can also help in how these platforms improve their safeguard in order to help a vulnerable group which one day will be our future. 

Header: Twitch