Hate raids return to Twitch, another wave of attacks target LGBTQIA+ streamers

Hate raids have once again propagated across Twitch. But this time, viewers from an entirely different platform are targeting LGBTQIA+ streamers on Twitch.

Streamers such as EarthToBre, Blizzb3ar, and xProvexx were all among the first to report on hate raids stemming from Cozy.tv. Users descending on Twitch reportedly spammed Twitch chatrooms, Discord servers, and flooded creators’ DMs with hateful, homophobic messages.

EarthToBre said that users on Cozy.tv encouraging these hate raids also restreamed targeted streamers’ broadcasts while mocking them. Blizzb3ar was the victim of one of these hate raids while conducting a sponsored stream and was forced to end it early due to the sheer volume and vitriolic nature of these messages.

Twitter user xProvexx quickly found the source of these hate raids, linking it back to website Cozy.tv. Nick Fuentes, the co-founder of the conservative streaming website, made a statement both claiming credit for the waves of harassment and further encouraging it. A known white nationalist and far-right supporter, Fuentes has been banned from Twitch, Reddit, and YouTube.

This is not the first time that Twitch has had to confront bands of hateful viewers. In August 2021, Twitch faced significant backlash from its creators after a delayed response to an initial wave of hate raids. As a response, Twitch rolled out phone verification in September 2021, meant to combat the bot accounts being used in these raids.

The creator of the Sery_Bot, used to deter previous hate raids, responded to their sudden return. The bot is meant to detect hate raids in real-time and dole out bans to offenders. But Sery advised that streamers also set up reliable moderators and use Twitch’s options such as emote-only mode and phone and email verification in conjunction.

Update March 11 6pm CT: Twitch issued a statement following this recent incident: “Over the past 24 hours, bad actors have been coordinating off-Twitch to target women and LGBTQ+ members of our community with spammy and hateful chat messages. Hate has no place on Twitch, and we’ve identified and suspended the Twitch accounts of the individuals participating.”