The viewbots have come for Twitch

If attention is the main currency of the modern web, that means dealing with counterfeit attention is an increasingly existential problem. 

Across the internet, there are dozens of services and programs designed to create artificial engagement and activity on social platforms, adding hundreds or thousands of followers, likes, and more to accounts. While every platform is fighting a war against the bots, it seems like the streaming service Twitch is getting hit hard right now.

Over the past few months, Twitch has shown multiple signs of a rise in what’s commonly called “viewbotting,” the ostensibly banned practice of having thousands of mass-controlled accounts watch livestreams. These fake views push the streams up in the platform’s recommendation service and, if they’re already popular enough to have a Partner account, generate real money from the site’s revenue-sharing program.

Viewbotting is against Twitch’s rules, but it’s hard to prove, which is why it’s been an issue on the site for years. Some of the biggest accounts on Twitch have accused their rivals of the practice, while smaller channels often get much less attention for more substantiated claims. Garbage Day has identified a larger pattern to the most suspicious cases — one that suggests the practice has become so common, it’s being used as a weapon. 

We reached out to Twitch for comment weeks ago when we started reporting this story, but haven’t gotten a response. The company did make several public statements in late July about cracking down on the practice.

Viewbotting occupies a complicated spot in the culture and infrastructure of Twitch. The platform’s moderation guidelines specify that fake engagement in general is “a violation of our policies” and “not permitted on Twitch services.” Even so, the ban comes with a lot of caveats, because it’s very difficult to definitively prove viewbotting is taking place without direct admission from the one responsible. The platform’s last widely reported ban for viewbotting happened in March, after streamer QueenGloriaRP accidentally displayed an active viewbotting program during a stream. 

Twitch’s especially opaque moderation system seems to operate on the assumption “innocent until proven guilty,” meaning consequences will be rare without some kind of ironclad evidence. For example, rapper Ray J said during a stream last month, “Viewbotting… so what? It’s legal... Why wouldn’t I?”

Two associates of streaming superstar Kai Cenat were accused of viewbotting in April by Felix “xQc” Lengyel, one of Twitch’s biggest streamers. In response, Cenat said, “I don’t give a f---. They’re all viewbotters — I don’t care,” dismissing Lengyl’s allegations.

Viewbotting is hard to distinguish from authentic popularity. Streams rapidly gain and lose viewers all the time, without any artificial boost needed. For example, last month’s NFL Draft was streamed by Shilo Sanders, brother of top prospect Shedeur Sanders, who was on the stream. When Shedeur was finally selected, over 40,000 viewers started watching the stream within 10 minutes, according to statistics from TwitchTracker, so they could see Shedeur’s reaction live. Even without that clear flashpoint of interest, there are many other elements of Shilo’s stream that indicate the influx of viewers was likely authentic. Most obviously, there were already more than 19,000 viewers before the upswing. Many people who follow college football and the NFL were interested in Shedeur’s fate, so it’s not crazy to think that viewer count could have doubled.

Over the past several months, however, Garbage Day has found over 20 examples of suspicious spikes over 5,000%, where within 10 minutes, at least 50x as many viewers start watching the stream. Some of the spikes coincided with a major moment of interest like the NFL Draft, but many didn’t have any apparent reason, going from dozens or hundreds of viewers to tens or hundreds of thousands with no ramp-up of increased activity.

A handful of streams in the first few days of May, concentrated on May 2, all saw huge surges. These were smaller channels and the engagement went largely unnoticed by the Twitch community, another sign the engagement might not be authentic. Two of these streamers changed the title of their streams to mention viewbotting. Many of the spikes occurred at the same time on May 2, which was also true of several others on July 3. 

Interestingly, there are also signs that some of these potential cases of viewbotting were carried out by someone other than the streamer. 

One of May’s most watched Twitch streams was by the streamer JonahVeil, who went from less than 200 concurrent viewers to over 150,000 instantly. When the flood of viewers continued, JonahVeil changed the stream title to “Please Read Pinned Message,” and later posted on X that he was “being viewbotted” by “odd fans.” 

Twitch has a history of users gaming the system. Among its community, this is often referred to as a “Twitch meta.” So it’s not surprising, in the wake of xQc’s high-profile accusations going nowhere, that Twitch users may feel emboldened to take advantage of one of the platform’s blind spots.

But this particular meta strikes right to the core of Twitch’s business model. If views become meaningless, so do the ad dollars they represent. 

The difference between authentic and inauthentic content online has never felt more nebulous, thanks to the rise of generative AI. But at the same time, creators are more desperate than ever for views and engagement. It’s an arms race that every platform has to be actively engaged in fighting. And if Twitch can’t keep up, the whole platform could easily fall apart.

Garbage Day is an award-winning newsletter that focuses on web culture and technology, covering a mix of memes, trends, and internet drama. We also run a program called Garbage Intelligence, a monthly report tracking the rise and fall of creators and accounts across every major platform on the web. We’ll be sharing some of our findings here on Sherwood News. You can subscribe to Garbage Day here.