Twitch is taking a stand against anti-Asian speech and hate crimes. The streaming platform is teaming up with charitable organizations to raise awareness of hate crimes, hate speech, and xenophobia.

The video game community has been taking stronger stands as of late against harassment, hate speech, and the like. Over last summer, developers and publishers stepped up, like EA attempting to reduce racist language in its sports games, a genre with a negative reputation in that area. In light of a nationwide--and very much worldwide--Black Lives Matter movement, the gaming world collectively took a stand; it is now doing so for the Asian and Asian American community as well.

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Twitch is using its very large platform to make a statement. Hate, racism, xenophobia, and violence is not acceptable. In joining up with Act to Change, Asian Mental Health Collective, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Stop AAPI Hate, and American Friends of International China Concern limited, Twitch is putting teamwork into its effort. As far as what this means tangibly for the platform as well, Twitch has banned content creators for hateful content in the past, and it will likely put even more effort in moderation in this area.

Of course, racism or hate speech directed towards anyone for reasons of any gender, age, ethnicity, etc. is wrong, and harassment in games should be condemned. Right now, Twitch, and much of the community at large, is attempting to gather together to rise up against racism, bigotry, and xenophobia towards the Asian community.

Just as the Black Lives Matter movement gained massive momentum with the tragic and horrific killing of George Floyd last year, much of the rise in awareness for Asian hate and racism comes from comments from the now-former President/CEO of the MLB team Seattle Mariners, Kevin Mather. In a disturbing video that was recently uncovered and shared online, Mather unfurled insensitive, xenophobic, and hate-filled comments towards Asians, Dominicans, and players of other ethnicities. Mather has since resigned. Seattle is a very diverse city (around 15% Asian), and the Mariners share in that diversity. Nintendo--a Japanese company and one would likely feel quite offended by the Mather comments--was once the majority owner of the team, but still has minority ownership.

Twitch also made it clear that some of the additional hatred that the Asian community has been feeling is due to the COVID-19 pandemic. What is important is that powerful and good moments can come from awful ones. The efforts by Twitch to raise awareness in this area is being commended by many, but some have argued that it should not stop there. Change comes from taking awareness and turning it into action.

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