Twitch has been at the forefront of streaming services for several years now, providing a platform that helped many rise to huge heights of popularity. However, its presence in the news recently has largely been due to controversy.
The most notable of these was a recent movement titled #ADayOffTwitch. Streamers came together with viewers to protest a practice on Twitch called Hate Raiding by boycotting the platform for a full day. The boycott of Twitch saw a huge drop in viewership, but recent Tweets suggest it's not just on the viewer side where Twitch has problems with bad behavior.
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Felicia Day, a longtime celebrity, producer, and actress, Tweeted about a confusing and distressing trend in her recommended Twitch streams. She found the streams offensive, claiming "I heard the c word and the n word dozens of times. I saw men repeatedly screaming profanity at women." This was when she was not logged in as herself, and it came as a shock that these were the generically promoted channels. xQc, one of the biggest streamers on Twitch right now, fired back with a Tweet of his own, asking for receipts of the streams. Considering xQc has had accusations of bad behavior leveled against him, it makes sense he'd want proof before it's levelled at others on the platform he calls home.
Day responded by saying that she was not talking about xQc's stream, claiming she had watched him a bit and laughed. xQc was thankful, and said he only wanted the receipts so that the streamers Day watched could be held responsible for their actions. As of this article, there is no reply from Day, and her original Tweet has been deleted. Perhaps she decided to look for streams on YouTube, as many streamers have been moving there, and some predict more Twitch streamers will follow.
The confrontation, while civil, sparked responses from people who believe Day and people who don't, saying she's inventing phantom incidents for attention or misunderstanding Twitch's community. However, Day is intimately familiar with the darkest parts of gaming culture, as evidenced by her doxxing during Gamergate and her disdain for its representation in the upcoming film 1Up. As a successful actress and producer impacted by sexism, it seems unlikely she would say something like this without cause.
On the other hand, xQc's defense of Twitch is understandable considering he has made his fortune on the platform and has an exclusivity contract with it. He is also no stranger to controversy, being banned five times from Twitch for reasons not always clear. His own experience explains why clarity is needed when it comes to issues that could effect a Twitch streamer's livelihood.