Twitch Reveals 7.5 Million Accounts Providing Fake Engagement

Twitch is cracking down on fake engagement and suspending more than 7.5 million accounts in the process. Anyone who has been on social media a lot in the past two decades knows about the dangers of this sort of practice. People buy followers or even entire campaigns to boost their numbers. This can lead to increased brand opportunities and endorsement paydays for streaming personalities, influencers, and other celebrities. However, this can also affect people negatively as bots can be used to harass people or flood the chats of streamers online who might draw the ire of some observers. So, Twitch is trying to do something about people who goose their own numbers. Some users will probably see their follower counts take a bit of a hit, but many more will be unaffected. The aftermath of moments like this can be very telling as big names can lose thousands of followers in a single day.

The company put out some quick words about their efforts on social media and the larger community seems to believe this is a good thing. Check out what they had to say for yourself, “We have been monitoring the rise of fake engagement on Twitch and have identified 7.5MM+ accounts that break our TOS by follow-botting and view-botting. We are taking action on these accounts and appreciate all of the reports about this issue.”

“A majority of these accounts were detected through ongoing machine learning technology that will continue to improve and we will continue to operate going forward. We engage in enforcement when necessary including pursuing legal action,” They continued.

Twitch added, “As a result of these removals, you may see sudden decreases in your follower and viewer count over the coming days. If you believe that you were follow- or view-botted, please check out our help article.”

How many streamers do you think will be affected by this? Let us know down in the comments!