Illustration by William Joel / The Verge
Hate raids happen with little warning. A streamer will get a follow notification and instead of feeling joy that a new person has joined their community, dread sets in as their chat suddenly erupts into an uncontrollable geyser of hateful messages. Hate raids have infested Twitch over the last few weeks, primarily targeting marginalized streamers making life on the platform so miserable many are considering abandoning it altogether.
Twitch has promised new safety features are in the works, but streamers are upset and angry that more hasn’t been done to stop hate raids. Streamers are using the #twitchdobetter hashtag to agitate for change, and they are creating and sharing resources to protect themselves against the seemingly endless…
