Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/09/05/twitch-has-nothing-to-say-abou.html
…
2 Likes
Wait. So the dude is all brash and man enough to drop the N word but he says “pee pee”?
So he’s an asshole and a dumbass.
12 Likes
1 Like
Even if they did take action it’s really only going to be a slap on the wrist. I don’t see Twitch ever kicking him off for good.
5 Likes
as despicable as his actions were off stage; this type of stuff he routinely did on stage was good IMO.
3 Likes
Agree %100 about the off-stage BS. My favorite:
3 Likes
How frustrating. Does Twitch realize this is just some idiot who happened to get luck and get these followers? I don’t think this is analogous to a record label losing a rock star. It’s more analogous to Marvel movies losing an actor. Replace the actor with another one or write the character out entirely and people will still show up. I’d wager heavily this person is as replaceable to Twitch as car parts.
11 Likes
The big corporate social media platforms piss their pants at the prospect of losing revenue in the process of kicking off bigots. Twitch will keep him on, despite the TOS violation, just like Facebook and Twitter do with their bad actors.
10 Likes
The impression I get on a lot of these huge streamers is they’re huge by virtue of jumping on early and being loud. A decent bit of that loudness being of the blandly provocative type and a willingness to “its just jokes” about minorities.
9 Likes
Because Twitch sorts by number of viewers by default, I think it naturally concentrates the audience towards the top. Like if you want to watch Fortnite (I don’t know why, but let’s say you do) and you say, “Who is streaming Fortnite,” then you end up with a list of the person who has 100k people watching, then the person with 50k, then the people with 20k. Why would you scroll down to the person who has 200, all other things being equal?
So I think Twitch tends to reward, as you say, being early, but also just being there a lot. If you stream 12 hours a day then you are there to absorb that traffic. And if you get the ball rolling the system piles more and more viewers onto you. I think there is probably some reward for being a loudmouth asshole, but I’m not sure it’s substantial. I think it’s more like there is a correlation between being a disgruntled asshole and having few enough things in your life that you are able to stream games for 8+ hours a day (before you have turned it into a career).
9 Likes
Yes and no, they are definitely replaceable but they are brands onto themselves so wherever they move to they will typically have an audience following them. Ninja moved over to the competing service Mixer and quickly gained followers there, i presume Twitch is trying to avoid sending another big name to a competitor.
3 Likes
You can suck my pee pee, man."
He can say the N-Word, but can’t say dick / cock?
5 Likes
4 Likes
I don’t know whether to:
- give Twitch the benefit of the doubt and think they are amoral Machiavellians* who are simply comparing the number of viewers they stand to lose by kicking someone like this to the number of viewers they stand to lose by making people think they tolerate or support racism; or
- assume the people making this decision are so short sighted and linear in their thinking that they just cower under the 7M number and don’t even think about what it means
I guess I kind of lean towards (2), with possibly lying to themselves to say it’s (1). They’d have the data to better analyze which hurt is worse, but I doubt they are capable of an actual unbiased assessment of that.
The more Twitch can let someone like me watch GDQs and retro-game archivists while projecting my experience onto the rest of Twitch in my mind the better it is for them. When they go out and force knowledge that they are a hate-speech platform on me, it hurts them.
* “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are an amoral Machiavellian is something I probably think too often”
6 Likes
I’m guessing the worst that could happen to him now is for Twitch to have him squirt out some lawyer-generated apology.
6 Likes
Gotta protect shitty people because they are popular. Don’t bite that nasty hand that’s feeding you. Thank you, tech giants.You’re an inspiration to us all.
3 Likes
Maybe the better way to put it is that this sort of behavior is an effective way to attract eyeballs in the early stages.
Other user generated platforms seem to have had similar issues. It seems like the whole automate curation and moderation thing just de-prioritises actual content and material to the point that being awful becomes one of several quick ways to exploit the system and get embedded in the way you’re describing.
A lot of those seem to have shown up as brands though. I’m not entirely up on this stuff, but at least some of the top game streamers are also high ranked e-sports folks. And I seem to remember that Twitch in particular heavily recruited those sorts of players on their rise to the top.
Ninja in particular was a REALLY prominent e-sports personality and youtuber before Twitch.
Which is sort of the answer there, large part of it seems to be that watching Fortnight streams in a big chunk of following competitive Fortnight. Together with the fact that Fortnight is huge right now, if you follow any of these people you will end up watching them play Fortnight whether you’re really interested in it or not.
Even (1) is still short-sighted.
If they really are trying to maximize the number of users (and reduce the user loss to other platforms), their actions have to be subtle and not perceived by the parties involved.
For example, by reducing the exposure of the flagged ones to kill them slowly instead of a hard blow that would send them (and some of their followers) to other sites.
But it will still leave some of the user base pissed, and when they solve the problem no one will notice it.
I think a true Scotsmanamoral Machiavellian would work to remove the idea of racism altogether instead of have to pick a side.
Maybe a better question is “What would Disney do?”
If our wiki overlords are to be believed, his ‘catchphrase’ is “Suck my peen, dawg!”
I think it’s only fair to assume that we aren’t dealing with the best, brightest, or most tasteful here.
3 Likes
To be fair, though, they did give away free subscriptions to his channel.
