Twitch Streaming and Toxic Chats
With the growth of Twitch, there’s also a growth of problems. One of the biggest problems with Twitch is the toxicity of chat during a stream. This problem has always been around but it’s becoming more of a problem with the increase in viewers. Depending on what community/stream you tune into, the chat can be a great place. The chat can support the streamer and be seen talking with others in the chat. But this is not always the case. There is always that one person or people who like to cause problems in the chat and say offensive and hateful things. These people usually say what they want in chat but then the message gets removed.
To fight hateful chats, the streamer usually hires help to watch chat. These people can be human moderators and AI. The human moderators support the chat and understand more of the content being posted. But human moderators are not always reliable because they can miss things if the chat is moving too fast or not understand what is being said. AI then uses an algorithm in the Twitch system as well as third-party chatbots that can prevent certain words from being posted in chat and then deleted if they go against the rules. The problem is it’s not always reliable because the chatters can bypass AI by changing the font type and/or using emotes to get the point across. As well as people hinting at certain offensive terms or sayings AI cannot find. This is why the use of human moderators is so important.
Typically, smaller streamers with fewer viewers have more of a positive chat because the chat moves slower, and moderators and the streamer can see more of chat. As well as seeing the offensive and hateful chats right away and removing them faster. With bigger streamers gaining more views, this is more of a problem. The chat is moving faster with more people chatting and more hateful comments being made. These comments can be pointed to the streamer or people in chat. But the use of human moderates will help. The streamers can give more control to human moderators over chat by not only deleting chats but also banning hateful comments/accounts and timing them out for a certain period of time.
If the whole chat is spamming something, whether it be something offensive or just something annoying, the moderators can also change the chat to Sub-Only mode. This is where only the subscribers to that channel can chat. They can also make it Emote-Only mode where the chat can only send emotes instead of words. The human moderator’s job is to make sure the stream runs smoothly and to make the streamer feel comfortable as they stream. The streamer should be focused on the stream and the content they make. The human moderators make sure everything runs smoothly behind the scenes. That is why they are important to have and can help solve the toxic chat problem.
