September 1st is #ADayOffTwitch.

Multiple Twitch streamers are planning on boycotting the platform in protest of hate raids that have been hitting marginalized streamers across the site for a while now. They feel as though Twitch has done very little to prevent these hate raids from happening in the first place.

For those in the dark, these "hate raids" are when a streamer is targeted by someone, or multiple someones, that spam the streamer's chat with hate speech. These messages are often made via botted accounts that can quickly spam the user's chat within seconds. These messages often include racial slurs, misogynistic comments, or a combination thereof. A very recent example can be found via popular Twitch streamer Trihex's Twitter posting. He posted a couple of screen grabs of his chat immediately after he was the target of one of these hate raids just last night.

Come September 1st, streamers will go on strike in an effort to make Twitch actually do something about the hate raids and hate speech that has been directed towards these marginalized streamers across the service. This strike is being organized by Rek It Raven, LuciaEverBlack, and Shineypen. They are using the hashtag #ADayOffTwitch across social media to spread awareness about this strike.

This planned strike follows another campaign, also started by Rek It Raven, which began earlier this month. This was the #TwitchDoBetter campaign that tried to get Twitch to act quickly after these marginalized streamers were first targeted by the hate raids. Twitch did issue a small update that they hoped would help alleviate the situation, but the raids continued on without slowing down much.


Twitch has tried to reassure streamers that they are continuing to work on the issues. On August 20th, they tweeted a message saying that "no one should have to experience malicious and hateful attacks based on who they are or what they stand for." They continue on to say that they "are working hard to make Twitch a safer place for creators."

Despite the remarks from Twitch, many streamers still feel as though not enough is being done. That is where this #ADayOffTwitch strike is coming in to play. So far, Rek It Raven's Tweet has received over 7.5K likes and 7.4 retweets on Twitter. The goal of the boycott is to perhaps push Twitch to prioritize the company into releasing additional tools and protections to help combat these hate raids.