Child predator report on Twitch is ‘deeply upsetting’
Last Updated on: 21st September 2022, 10:29 pm
Twitch has been known to many as a platform for both casual and professional gamers to showcase their talents and skills. It is a channel where people can connect and reach out to the people they look up to, may it be gaming-related or just to have a good time. However, lurking in this innocence are people looking to use it to abuse others.
***Trigger warning: The article contains certain mentions of child predation and other forms of online abuse that may be upsetting or triggering.***
Here are the numbers: 1,976 alleged child predators are on Twitch, based on an analysis from October 2020 through August 2022 as per research.
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“…factors that have contributed to its (Twitch) rapid growth, such as the ease with which anyone can open an account and begin broadcasting themselves live, have also enabled predators to target young users, according to an analysis from October 2020 through August 2022 by a researcher who studies livestreaming websites.”
– Bloomberg
A recent report from Bloomberg gave a glimpse of the alarming numbers regarding the looming threat to child safety in Twitch. The chilling page starts with an introduction of two young girls casually sitting in a bedroom when they decided to broadcast themselves on the platform.
The chat panel showed disturbing messages from a viewer of the two young girls, like “cool but can you place the cam on a table because we can just see legs“. What is more disturbing is that the report mentioned that the same viewer entered another channel of a young girl and the viewer asked her to perform popular TikTok dances. According to the report, 254 people watched, and in less than an hour, the same viewer was able to follow four other young girls on Twitch.
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More numbers were shown by the report, such as a pre-teen streamer followed by at least 23 predatory accounts on Twitch. It also showed how accounts were identified and tagged as ‘predatory’ by confirming that the accounts were primarily created “to catalog, watch and manipulate children, including enticing them to perform everything from suggestive dances to explicit sexual acts, according to the findings.”
There were 279,016 very young people targeted by the alleged predators. The report also cited that in July 2022, alleged predators found an average of 673 pre-teens daily.
The report did confirm that Twitch has acknowledged this concern. It has always been one of the darkest sides of every online platform. They also mentioned that they have been taking steps over the last two years to address this matter.
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Twitch addresses child predation from Bloomberg
“We know that online platforms can be used to cause harm to children, and we have made extensive investments over the last two years to better stay ahead of bad actors and prevent any users who may be under 13 from accessing Twitch.”
Twitch
Additionally, the report mentioned that Twitch increased the size of its law enforcement response team by more than four times. They continue to work with NCMEC (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) and the Tech Coalition. A spokesperson from the company also mentions that there are “numerous additional updates in development” to prevent very young streamers and predators from entering the website.
The company is not publicly announcing specific details as “much of the work in this area” because of the people that may use this information ahead of time to evade accountability, according to the Twitch spokesperson.
If you would like to report any instances of child exploitation or predation, you can reach out to National Center for Missing & Exploited Children or call them at 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678).
