Twitch Phone Verification Added to Help Prevent Harassment, How?

Urian B., Tech Times 29 September 2021, 09:09 pm

Twitch is adding a phone verification to help prevent harassment within the platform. How does this work, and is this effective?

Twitch Moves to Stop Trolling

According to the story by CNet, Twitch streamers who were reportedly being regularly harassed in their chats actually held a protest on September 1, 2021. They reportedly started calling for the Amazon-owned streaming platform to start implementing more tools in order to stop trolling.

The company has decided to act on this, and in a recent official blog post, Twitch announced that it is now adding verifications to chats that could potentially help stop harassers. Phone and email verification for Twitch chatters are currently available for streamers as well as their moderators.

Users With Multiple Accounts to be Suspended

Users who already have multiple accounts tied to just one phone number will reportedly have all of their accounts suspended if just a single one of them is suspended as well. This is a move made by Twitch to help avoid ban evasions. For those that aren't yet streaming on this platform, check out our guide to learn how to stream on Twitch.

Twitch users that are banned will also not be able to verify more accounts that have the same number if there is a certain active suspension that is tied to it. The company noted that they had spent a lot of months building, testing, and even refining this particular tool.

Twitch Verification Process

It was noted that while this remains still far from the last update on the company's roadmap to be able to improve Creator safety, they are still very optimistic regarding the impact it might have in making a safer Twitch. Verified chat is then turned off by default but once it is turned on, streamers can now decide that the accounts watching will need to be verified.

This would apply to all accounts or other brand new accounts. Streamers will now also be able to exempt people like their subscribers, moderators, and of course, the streamer's very own VIPs. Making money on the platform has actually been a question asked a lot. Learn how to make money on Twitch through streaming.

Hate Raids on Twitch

Harassment has reportedly always been a problem with Twitch. During the recent months, however, a new form of harassment started to develop. These new forms of harassment are called "hate raids."

Hate raids work by trolls choosing a specific target streamer and utilize a swarm of bots to fill the channel's chat with loads of expletives and slurs. This could not only disrupt the streamer but also cause potential harm to other people as well through the form of consistent harassment.

The new trend can be potentially very dangerous since the attacks are a form of expletives and slurs, which are not only distracting but can also be very hurtful for some streamers. With the new Twitter phone verification method, the streaming platform will be able to cut back on potential bots using the streaming platform.

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Written by Urian B.