Twitch Finally Cracks Down on View Botting Scandal

Twitch CEO Dan Clancy has reportedly proposed a solution to disable autoplay on streamers who abuse embeds in response to the ongoing controversy of “legal view botting.” This issue, which involves streamers embedding their Twitch streams on third-party websites to artificially inflate viewership, has been a significant concern for the platform and its users.

Key developments in this story include:

• Gaming site Fextralife, which has over 1.6 million followers on Twitch, has been accused of using this method to inflate its viewership. The discrepancy between the site’s viewership numbers and the amount of chat activity on its streams has raised suspicions.
• The issue first gained attention in 2021 when YouTube star Ludwig accused Fextralife of stealing views by embedding streams on their game wikis. The controversy resurfaced with the release of Baldur’s Gate 3 in 2023, leading to widespread criticism of the site’s alleged shady practices.
• Twitch streamer Gothalion revealed in an October 2 broadcast that he had received an email from Twitch CEO Dan Clancy. In the email, Clancy asked for a shortlist of offenders who exploit embedded streams and proposed disabling autoplay on these websites as a temporary solution.
• Clancy described this as a “quick and dirty” fix while they work on a more sustainable long-term plan. He specifically mentioned Fextralife as one of the worst offenders and requested a list of similar culprits.

This news has been positively received by many in the Twitch community, who believe that autoplay embeds can disadvantage streamers producing high-quality, thoughtful content by promoting bigger streams that gain views from embeds. The proposed solution from Twitch’s CEO is seen as a significant step towards addressing the issue of legal view botting.

Overall, this is a positive development for the Twitch community, as it addresses a long-standing issue that has been harming smaller streamers. It is important to note that this is just a temporary solution, and Twitch is working on a more sustainable long-term plan to combat legal view botting.