Minority Streamers Are "Targets On Their Backs" In Twitch Hate Raids.

Due to the stream of abuse, streamers, mostly from minority or fringe groups, are getting their hands on the game streaming platform Twitch. "Being so open about my identity is received with a lot of hate by people I don't know most of the time," Max, a bisexual, transgender man, and Twitch streamer told Radio 1 Newsbeat.

Consumers like 19-year-old Max are controlled through what's known as hate robbery – a type of coordinated harassment primarily directed against members of a minority or marginalized community.

What is a hate attack?

"Raid" is a feature on Twitch that allows streamers to send their viewers to foreign channels while they are offline and is typically used to expand smaller or newer channels. But in hate attacks, users abuse them with bots - fake users who can be programmed to watch channels or write in chats - to clutter the streamer's chat area with hate messages.

Some streamers report that accounts that have been victims of hate attacks can sometimes be blocked - if they are offline and can't handle defamation in chat and then contact the platform. Twitch channels can have chat functionality, and platform rules state that streamers are responsible for moderating content on their media.

Twitch legal action

A Twitch spokesperson told Newsbeat that the platform is trying to address the issue and has filed lawsuits against people involved in "chat-based attacks against marginalized streamers." "While we have identified and blocked thousands of accounts over the past few weeks, these participants are continuing to work creatively hard to get past our fix and have shown no intention of stopping it," he added.

"Every time I'm attacked by hate or following a bot, I'll report it to Twitch and ask how this issue will be resolved," Max said.

Max from the southeast has been on the air for a year because he wanted to "create a more positive and realistic portrayal of trans people" on Twitch - but violence has escalated in recent months. What bothers me is my community and viewers who see the horrible spam messages in my chats and have no idea what's going on."

"It's not good when people come in and spam obscene messages in the chat, just trying to play a game and make a positive impact." And 23-year-old Sami, who was despised a few weeks ago, can understand that. I'm worried, and it can be very traumatic," said Sami. "The targeted attacks I received made me feel like a girl," the Belgian streamer told Newsbeat.

"My conversations are full of hate comments, comments about sexualization, about suicide, lots of slander like N-words and R-words." "I was stunned; I didn't know what to do," he added. Sami said he tried to continue streaming but stopped streaming for a week because "he didn't feel safe."

"There will be disgusting comments about my appearance and my racial slurs; it's very shocking," the 22-year-old from Gloucestershire told Newsbeat. "It's frustrating and unsettling to see words like N-word spam with different characters while I'm alive." At worst, he was hated and attacked every day for a week, an hour on each stream.