Twitch has its image tarnished after its recent issues with Hassan Bokhari but what has the platform done to recover?
Hassan Bokhari has been one of the most influential community managers on Twitch and a common name in the streaming community. A lot of female members of the community brought up several allegations against Hassan. The allegations were directed at not just Hassan but also other key members of the community including SayNoToRage, Wolv21, and more. It was not just streamer but also Evolved CEO Ryan Morrison and commentator Billy Jump Carter.
While the Hassan Bokhari controversy is still fresh on people’s minds, multiple Twitch staff came together to voice their dissatisfaction with the toxic culture that the company allegedly creates against minorities. Previous and current employees working at Twitch claim that the company is often indifferent towards abusive behavior. Twitch has been the most popular streaming platform globally for years and despite competition coming from all ends from Mixer and Facebook Gaming, it continues to be the number one platform. It is currently unknown if any of the allegations are true because the complainants have published their grievances anonymously and have not taken any names.
Recent Incidents That Plague The Platform
However, if we go by recent incidents that involve Hassan Bokhari, it does seem like the former Twitch Partnership Director is not just the only one involved in sexual assault scandals. In 2011, Twitch was originally launched as Justin.TV before it was acquired by Amazon in 2015. According to the complaint from the former staff, Twitch executives.
The most recent issue raised on Twitch is the platform’s inability to handle Sweet Anita’s recent stalking problems. The streamer pleaded on the internet for help against her stalkers who had been sending her death threats.
If anything happens to me, I really hope that I’m the last canary in the coal mine. The law needs to change, No job should have such a high risk of rape, assault or death, especially not live streaming.
— Sweet Anita (@Tweet4nita) July 14, 2020
The streamer posted about the stalking incident around July and posted several images showing messages from her stalkers. Twitch seemingly did nothing about the issue and let her handle it herself by informing legal authorities. On the other hand, minor offenses end up getting blown out of proportion, and Twitch partners get handed hefty bans for no real reason.
Cancel Culture and Its Impact on Twitch
One of the biggest talking points, whenever allegations are brought up by anyone these days, is cancel culture. There are way too many fake incidents that get brought up or cases of people chasing “clout” who want to defame people. Does that mean that all incidents that are posted about Twitch and its inactions are fake as well? Most likely not. Here is an in-depth video that was posted last month by Sweet Anita talking about her stalker issue.
Ron ‘Slasher’ Breslau who is the number one source for all things streaming and esports, confirmed that Hassan was indeed fired for his actions once they were proven true. It makes sense to give Twitch the benefit of the doubt as they focus on finding out the truth before taking decisions against its community members. But there is also the argument of the platform seemingly ignoring underlying issues until they grow too big. Hassan’s allegations didn’t just pop up in 2020. There have been way too many incidents that range across the past few years indicating the man was dubious with his behavior at best.
sources confirm Hassan Bokhari is no longer an employee of Twitch https://t.co/tTIW4cmzcX
— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) September 2, 2020
Hassan misused his position of power to get closer to various streamers and manipulated them. We may see a change in how Twitch handles such incidents going forward. So one month since the incident has been covered up, has the platform improved at all?
Please stop harassing me @Twitch https://t.co/KIOGUwt6yy
— Alisha12287 (@Alisha12287) October 16, 2020
Alisha12287, a popular Runescape streamer was being harassed by her fans over a very old incident involving her and a kitten mill. Kitten mills are used to breed cats in poor living conditions. Fans claim that the streamer is one of the reasons animal cruelty is so rampant and that Twitch does not care about its platform.
Popular streamer Destiny talked about the incident and claimed that it was blown out of proportion. His opinion on the matter garnered a ton of traction on Reddit and sparked conversations. One of the most important things to note is that Twitch is responsible for the safety of both its viewers and streamers. Allegations are filed every single day and Twitch has to be offered sufficient time to handle the situations on a case by case basis. If they were to jump and take action against every allegation made against its employees and content creators immediately, it would lead to total chaos on the platform and ruin the experience for everyone.
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