#ADayOffTwitch appears to lead to slight drop in viewership

#ADayOffTwitch, the phrase-turned-hashtag trended all day on Twitter yesterday as numerous content creators took a day away from streaming on Twitch to highlight issues such as “hate-raiding” and transparency on the platform.

With 57 million hours watched on Twitch yesterday, according to statistics from Sully Gnome, it is tough to determine exactly what kind of impact the day off had. Compared to the past four Wednesdays, the platform had slightly less viewership and fewer hours streamed. During the four Wednesdays in August, Twitch had around 61 to 65 million hours watched each day.

“Since the hours watched on Twitch on 9/1 were down about 7-14% compared to the previous four Wednesdays, it’s tough to say if that impact was streamers taking the day off or just a slower day,” StreamElements co-founder Doron Nir said. “While some questioned whether or not a protest would be effective, it’s safe to say it was based on the larger conversation it started that was reflected in the press and on social media.”

The one-day protest against Twitch came complete with a social media campaign by streamers posting an image that included a list of demands, which included increased discussion regarding abuse, limiting the number of accounts a single user can create, and increased transparency across the site.

Though the actual drop in viewership and hours streamed yesterday was relatively negligible, the conversation online that stemmed from it was perhaps the more impactful element to the protest, as #ADayOffTwitch continues to trend on Twitter a day after the actual protest.

Yesterday, the hashtag peaked as the second most popular phrase trending on Twitter in the United States behind “Texas,” which was trending because of the state’s polarizing abortion law. The hashtag has registered more than 100,000 tweets on the platform, with nearly all of them coming in the past two days.

Twitch’s initial response to the movement against hate raids came earlier in August. The platform said it was working on tools to help prevent marginalized streamers from being targeted. The move by Twitch came following a Twitter campaign by content creators led by the #TwitchDoBetter.

That didn’t appear to be enough to prevent streamers from this week’s effort to force faster action by the platform, however. Twitch has not yet officially commented on #ADayOffTwitch.