PopularTwitchstreamer Trainwrecks has made the bold accusation that 90 of the platform’s top-100 streamers are not only padding their stats in terms of viewership, but are aggressively viewbotting, a practice that is against the website’s terms of service. The statement was made during his most-recent stream onTwitchwhile discussing games occurring in the National Basketball Association and sports betting.
Viewbotting is a practice in which any streamer can pay for a subscription that allows a number of accounts to join their stream and increase their total viewer count. While it is against the rules to do so according to Twitch’s terms of service, it hasn’t stopped big and small streamers alike to abuse the system to gain more visibility. In 2018,popular streamer Kevin Pereira was banned from Twitch after his show, The Attack, was discovered to be heavily viewbotted.
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With over two million followers on Twitch,Trainwrecks is one of the biggest and most influential content creatorson the platform. His streams often fall into the Just Chatting category, an area involving streamers talking about anything with their viewers, but also trend into games such asWorld of WarcraftandPUBG: Battlegrounds. One day before Christmas Eve, Trainwrecks took to Twitch to discuss NBA games and sports betting, but the conversation took a turn when he began to discuss the issue with viewbotting and what he believes is going on with most of the site’s top-100 streamers. “I’m under the impression, confidently, that, in the top 100, at least 90 out of 100 are not only blatantly viewbotting, but we’re talking massively viewbotting. Cause you’re able to’t tell at that point, right?”
Trainwrecks followed this statement up by admitting he has no proof to confirm these allegations, and it could be a matter of him coping with the idea of other streamers being larger than him without offering the same substance. “For the longest time, I sat there thinking, ‘Why are these streamers with my viewership average or higher than me by 20-30 thousand, why are they sitting there so worried about me?” He followed that up by claiming that he believes he andanother large streamer by the name of Summit1Gare the only content creators on Twitch to maintain a 99% logged-in viewership average, while the remainder of the list falls short at around 45%.
If the allegations are true, it’s just another notch on the belt of controversies surrounding the Twitch platform this year. From the Nadia doxxing incident that saw her suspension overturned in hours to the gambling streams hitting an all-time low,Twitch has been under the microscope for controversies in 2022. It’s uncertain if an investigation will follow amidst the most-recent allegations made by Trainwrecks, but the statement alone has sent shockwaves throughout the platform, with many of his fans agreeing that there is some truth to his words.
