Twitch CEO claims “thousands” of small streamers are viewbotting
Twitch CEO Dan Clancy responded to concerns about viewbotters on the platform, stating that mostly small streamers are behind the inflated viewership.
Viewbotting refers to the act of artificially raising a streamer’s total viewers through the use of automated programs, commonly referred to as “bots.”
Certain creators, such as Trainwreck, have claimed that some clout-chasing streamers are paying as much as$20,000 a weekfor advanced bots and that Twitch has the“number one” viewbotted streamerin the world.
In July, Twitchmade changes to better detect viewbots, and during a podcast with Noah Kara, Clancy revealed new details about what types of streamers are botting.
Dan Clancy has “no idea” how many viewbots are on Twitch
When asked directly if a lot of streamers were viewbotting, Clancy confirmed that there are.
“Yes, they are constantly – it’s a constant battle,” he said. “There are third parties that do it, and especially when you get to ads, they try to viewbot forads. They viewbot for all sorts of things, really.”
When pressed about specifics, Clancy claimed that streamers aren’t always complicit in the botting, adding that “most of the fraud is not on a big streamer” but rather, thousands of smaller ones.
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“If they can create a thousand bogus accounts and then they create viewbots, then they can create bogus revenue,” the CEO explained.
Back in March, a small Twitch streamer was banned after she accidentallyexposed her viewbotting programduring a live broadcast.
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Kara then inquired about the largest number of viewbots he’s seen, but couldn’t give an answer, stating that he had “no idea.”
We’ll have to see ifTwitch’s updates do a better job at catching bots or if those abusing the system find quick workarounds.
However, given Clancy’s response to the viewbotting problem, it appears that even he’s unaware at the true scope of the issue plaguing the Amazon-owned platform.
