Twitch has filed a lawsuit against two alleged hate raid organizers from the chat room “Rape Crew” on its platform. The company is seeking to shut down the site and ban the members of the group for violating its terms of service.
Twitch TV is a service that allows people to stream video games. The company has unleashed a lawsuit against two alleged hate raid organizers.
In August, we covered streamers’ attempts to raise awareness of hate raiding and other kinds of harassment directed against Black, POC, and LGBT+ Twitch broadcasters. The effort culminated in a one-day boycott of the platform on September 1st, which we participated in; we also wrote about it, arguing that while the boycott’s efforts were well-intentioned, major changes would likely take more than that, and we expressed concern that Twitch and its parent company, Amazon, would simply let the whole thing blow over.
Twitch, on the other hand, appears to be taking active action in the form of a lawsuit, accusing two alleged hate raid organizers — “Cruzzcontrol” and “CreatineOverdose,” both of whom are believed to reside in the Netherlands and Austria, respectively — of targeting specific streamers with racist and homophobic content in violation of the platform’s terms of service. According to the complaint, Twitch discovered the users and originally banned them, but they aggressively evaded the restriction by “creating new, alternative Twitch accounts, and constantly changing their self-described ‘hate raid code’ to prevent discovery and suspension by Twitch.”
While the lawsuit does not mention a monetary figure, it does ask for “enhanced, liquidated, compensatory, special, and punitive damages,” as well as the two accused raid organizers to pay court costs. According to a Twitch representative, it is also anticipated that this action would serve as a deterrence to others.
“We believe that by filing this Complaint, we will be able to learn more about the people behind these assaults and the tools they use, discourage them from using similar tactics on other sites, and put a stop to these heinous attacks on members of our community.”
The formal paperwork was bought by our fellow blogger Connor at MMO Fallout, and you can see it here.
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