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Twitch streamers and racist/bigoted donation messages
- Thread starter Jokab
- Start date
DAREALGUMMY
Member
When people are just internet tough guys, yes. When there's actual injustice and hate, then it's time to do something about it. Attention is what people seek and making an uproar about someone giggling to themselves when they do something like that gives them what they want.
that's not how things work.
So if someone prints a huger billboard that says "n*ggers and jews should burn in hell" it'd be a good thing, because after all, that bigot 'lost money'?
by tolerating that shit and telling people to be "less offended", those streamers are making spewing these kinds of hateful statements socially acceptable.
Tell your black humoured racist jokes to your friends, sure.
But have them broadcast to an audience of tens of thousands of - what is to a large degree - impressionable kids, that's just irresponsible. - and you can't just say "watch something else". That's not how this works. You'll end up with racist / bigoted echo chambers. "Just don't browse /r/creepshots", they say.
Twitch banned weird pedo games, twitch 'banned' boob streamers, so why draw the line at that kind of explicit content?
If people think it's fine that people act this way in fairly public spaces, then it is at the very least okay that people find it offensive.
The different etiquette standards between face-to-face interactions and the internet have become a gulf, and are moving further and further apart.
You are allowed to take offense. I'm allowed to suggest for you to lighten up. You don't have to. Twitch troll behavior is so clearly in jest, I just don't know how you can take it so seriously. If it felt as if almost anyone actually meant it, maybe I could see your side of it, but I just don't think that's the case. People spam vote Trump in Twitch chat. It's funny. They're doing it because they're just trying to spam whatever they think will get a reaction. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of Twitch's audience are young democrats. They're just trolls, and a lot of people find it entertaining.
Yeah! Just throw the Dota players and fans under the bus!
I really wish people would knock this shit off, as it is another form of prejudice. Don't get me wrong, I know the Dota community has it's reputation for toxicity, but to just dismiss these problems with "Well you're watching Dota streamers and there's awful people in that fanbase" is really ignorant.
Maybe I just find it unfunny and idiotic rather than benign. It's like a bunch of idiots bashing their heads together, stringing together whatever hateful words and phrases they can think of and sending it out. And because it's the internet it's allowed. It's their 'safe space' to act like complete assholes. If you went to a movie theater or sporting event, and some of the audience was saying audibly racists, sexist, and homophobic things wouldn't that be a little strange? Wouldn't those people be ostracized? Shouldn't a similar approach happen here?
There's nothing fun or funny about hate speech. If the audience at a concert was shouting hatespeech the entire show because they thought it was funny and the artist on stage was condoning it I"d leave and never come back and never support that artist again.
Yeah, the SWAT team showed up at someone's door and pointed a gun at them. Funny goof! Lighten up!
Don't take away from the people that like to throw around racial slurs! Think of those poor people!
Netherscourge
Banned
Anonymity hurts the internet more than it helps it.
Yes, racism is definitely funny to a lot of people. If we don't like it we should just look away. That's definitely the correct attitude to have.
hydrophilic attack
Member
Twitch is a cesspool. It reflects really badly on gaming culture. Really needs to be cleaned up and heavily modearated
Unless the entire intention of the "just joking" is to offend or outrage. There may be some deep underlying sociological meaning behind why a comedian might tell a racist or bigoted joke. I don't think most trolls are posting their own deep seeded outrageous thoughts; they're posting what they think you will find offensive. You're looking way, way too hard for some deeper meaning here. Not everything is academic.
People are allowed to take offense and verbally retaliate against individual(s) they deem offensive as they please, just as you are able to retaliate verbally against trolls online. However, the people you deem offensive still have the right to free speech even if that speech is negative or shocking, save for explicit threats.
I agree with some of the posters here. It should be up to the streamer to moderate their own channel.
But don't you see how ridiculous trying to make this distinction sounds? First of all, you are making a complete guess about someone's intent. Second, it sounds like some loophole in order to say gross, racist shit.
It's not like their intentions are positive. It's not like they are talking positively. They are intentionally trying to annoy and hurt people, and are using racist language to do it. Trying to discern what they are feeling while they execute this is like splitting the tiniest of hairs.
This isn't a free speech issue, lol. People aren't entitle to free speech in areas controlled and regulated my private entities. It's like demanding that ESPN allows it's anchors to swear and use the N word because free speech. We are saying it's outrageous, and that twitch + streamers should make some attempt to stop it.
"Lighten up" is my favorite line as pertains to discussions about racism. Of all time.
Well rather than respond to everyone individually, I'll just say, that I think when you get so far down the rabbit hole of dissecting everything through an academic lens, you get to a point where everything becomes very literal, and for me, that is a very scary place. I'm clearly in the minority here, and need to sleep more than I need to debate a crowd, so I'll let you guys have at it.
You are literally just covering your ears and saying "it is what it is".
What is academic about 'saying unfunny, deliberately racist shit for no reason is unacceptable'?
Twitch has been neutral thus far, and in my opinion, should continue to be so.
The individual streamer is able to moderate their own channel. Like others have said, if you find a channel offensive, you could retaliate against it or simply stop watching.
Smooth Operator
Member
john madden john madden john madden john madden john madden
jadedm17
Member
This.
Boogie2988 is the main stream I watch that big and he calls out every one; He used to only have text to speech on once a month because of such donations even though he would make far more money those nights : Upwards of $500 from his usual $100-200. Thankfully people have tamed because of his stance and he usually has speech on and gets far less hate messages.
capylikesgames
Banned
I've seen a couple of streamers avoid this by looking through messages during downtime and avoid reading out any of the harmful ones, instead of leaving it to a bot. Though I guess it wouldn't work as well if you had a lot of viewers. Do these bots have any sort of filter system? I wouldn't expect it to be perfect, but it could cut down on some of it.
MiguelItUp
Member
This is hilarious to me ¯\_(ツ_/¯
Agreed. Honestly, I think the best thing to do in any situation like this is to just not support it / them. I know that may sound a bit blunt, but it's honestly probably the most effective way to avoid this kind of behavior if it's affecting you in a negative way. I feel like the larger Twitch is becoming the more common that kind of behavior becomes, I mean, it's practically something that I expect now.
Like a lot of people said, the streamers only allow it because people love - I really mean LOVE - the damn text to speech donations. They won´t disable it if it helps give them money, simple as that.
There was this one time that Kripp allowed text to speech messages and he got a lot of money. People were sending crazy messages just to sound funny and think that they are badass. The amount of messages were so big that people would only have their messages read live after about 20 minutes or so of sending their donations.
Kripp also doesnt do shit when he plays Hearthstone and he plays one card related to a monkey and the chat spams Trihexs emote. Happens ALL the time.
There was this one time that Kripp allowed text to speech messages and he got a lot of money. People were sending crazy messages just to sound funny and think that they are badass. The amount of messages were so big that people would only have their messages read live after about 20 minutes or so of sending their donations.
Kripp also doesnt do shit when he plays Hearthstone and he plays one card related to a monkey and the chat spams Trihexs emote. Happens ALL the time.
StanleyStutters
Member
Yeah, it is a big problem on Twitch. I typically leave any channel I enter once I see automated message reading for donations. I watch the streams to be entertained not dodge racist comments. There's only 1 channel I watch that I even leave chat open the rest of the time I go full-screen to dodge it.
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
Stop giving these streamers your time. Their silence says a lot about their character.
The biggest streamers have constant donations read up. Many of them have limits at $3-5 dollars to appear there.
Twitch should be able to regulate channels that have onscreen messages or tts bots. These are just donations and twitch doesn't get any from that. Seeing how these are used by some big, but mostly smaller streamers it shouldn't cost them too many subscribers.
Now the people facilitating these messages, that is the streamers and Twitch, are just as guilty as the people sending them.
And people suggesting to just look the other way... Smh... Even if they are just trolls, which we can't know for certain. This issue has a serious sliding scale problem. Do we just move the line a bit further? I hope not. If you can't realize how repeated messaging (wether meant or not) can result into stigmatising, from "hey *group of people* are dumb, is a funny message", to "it's okay to say derogatory things about *group of people*". To even worse.
I suggest to report the stream and stop watching them for as long as they condone or facilitate this behaviour. If you have the balls you can even drop a single line in chat saying your not okay with it and leave it at that.
Edit: also I'm not suggesting you can't make a joke, or have to find everything offensive, but obviously this can only take place in dialog and not one side communication.
If you use automated systems where you know it could result in this, just know what the consequences are. Perhaps it's better not use these systems and just select the messages by hand, wether by the streamer or a mod.
Now the people facilitating these messages, that is the streamers and Twitch, are just as guilty as the people sending them.
And people suggesting to just look the other way... Smh... Even if they are just trolls, which we can't know for certain. This issue has a serious sliding scale problem. Do we just move the line a bit further? I hope not. If you can't realize how repeated messaging (wether meant or not) can result into stigmatising, from "hey *group of people* are dumb, is a funny message", to "it's okay to say derogatory things about *group of people*". To even worse.
I suggest to report the stream and stop watching them for as long as they condone or facilitate this behaviour. If you have the balls you can even drop a single line in chat saying your not okay with it and leave it at that.
Edit: also I'm not suggesting you can't make a joke, or have to find everything offensive, but obviously this can only take place in dialog and not one side communication.
If you use automated systems where you know it could result in this, just know what the consequences are. Perhaps it's better not use these systems and just select the messages by hand, wether by the streamer or a mod.
DAREALGUMMY
Member
Not exactly a guarantee. Not to mention finding time and energy to stream to even get a loyal fan base let alone making that much.but that 10 quid every minute, thats 600 an hour?...
did I do that maths right?
Censorship on the Internet is never good, in my opinion. It ends up hurting the good people more than the bad.
There are so many positive streamers, no one has to sit in a chat full of bigotry and racism.
Zapperkhan
Member
Jokes are jokes, some bad some good, as long as they aren't inciting real extermination of people let it go. If not your thing change the channel. Streamers will cultivate the culture they want. But in the end you have to abide by the streaming service.
Goodideagaming had a very funny stream with racist donations fairly often and had a pretty good shtick of trying to control it by getting bothered by it and getting into a big tuff. Sorta like an old slapstick of repairing a leak and another one popping up. He had been banned several times with twitch citing donation comments and eventually perma'd. I kinda wish Twitch had a Twitch after dark section of the site as I really miss the trolly improv nature of the stream that was completely self-contained.
Moonmoon has a chill stream full of in jokes and memes and enjoys creative shitposting. Low tier shitposting gets you banned. He bms often in game and doesn't take much seriously. He keeps his donations censored and the stream is better with it that way.
Kaceytron is a gamer cam girl persona that is really hilarious. Her donation sound is the same as the myfreecams site and calls the money she receives tokens. She interacts with chat a lot. And comes up with some nice improv crowd work with chat and in game. If she ever gets tired of streaming I could easily see her writing comedy for a late night show.
Goodideagaming had a very funny stream with racist donations fairly often and had a pretty good shtick of trying to control it by getting bothered by it and getting into a big tuff. Sorta like an old slapstick of repairing a leak and another one popping up. He had been banned several times with twitch citing donation comments and eventually perma'd. I kinda wish Twitch had a Twitch after dark section of the site as I really miss the trolly improv nature of the stream that was completely self-contained.
Moonmoon has a chill stream full of in jokes and memes and enjoys creative shitposting. Low tier shitposting gets you banned. He bms often in game and doesn't take much seriously. He keeps his donations censored and the stream is better with it that way.
Kaceytron is a gamer cam girl persona that is really hilarious. Her donation sound is the same as the myfreecams site and calls the money she receives tokens. She interacts with chat a lot. And comes up with some nice improv crowd work with chat and in game. If she ever gets tired of streaming I could easily see her writing comedy for a late night show.
So that's the line? Everything on the table, even if the jokes are terrible, as long as the intent isn't genocide?
Zapperkhan
Member
Twitch makes the rules, up to them. Jokes are not hate speech. A Mexican riding in a car shaped like a burrito can be funny. A person saying they won't work with a Mexican and shaming them for that is hate. It pretty much comes down to context and whether there is a victim. It's really easy to take quotes and spread them like wildfire these days. Look at the Phil Fish and modern Japanese video games thing, it blew up without knowing the full situation of the panel.