If you’ve ever seen the TriHard emote on Twitch, you’ve seen streamer Mychal “Trihex” Jefferson’s face. The popular content creator has recently become the target of “hate raids,” causing Trihex to call on Twitch to take action.
Over the past few weeks, hate raids have become more prevalent on Twitch. This is when an army of bots targets a specific streamer, spamming their chat with racist, homophobic, or sexist abuse. A lot of the raids are using the TriHard emote, which is ironic since Trihex has been a target of trolls and racist abuse for years.
This includes a hate raid on August 22. Trihex shared his experience on Twitter, revealing the shockingly racist spam. Trihex called on Twitch to address the situation.
In response, the streaming community expressed horror at the hate raid. This included Anders “Ludwig” Ahgren, who called the person who programmed the bots an “insane psychopath.”
“I’m no stranger to being called these hateful things,” Trihex said. “But not everyone is accustomed to dealing with it.”
Trihex explained that a smaller streamer with no mod team could become “traumatized” when hundreds of bots come into their stream at the same time and start spamming chat with insults. Trihex warned other streamers to turn on sub mode to individually “nuke accounts.” But he mostly wanted Twitch to take action.
“I advocate a two-factor authentication toggle be added. Only 2FA accounts can send messages. Add a separate option for broadcasters to choose if any posts from non-2FA (bots) get deleted upon toggle as well,” Trihex said.
Trihex explained that this would minimize the trauma of “reading all this trash.”
On August 20, Twitch had made a promise that they were working on solutions that address hate raids. This included improving banned word filters and making it harder to avoid site bans. But as more and more hate raids take place on the platform, streamers are calling on Twitch for a faster and more effective solution.
Olivia Richman
About Olivia Richman
Olivia has worked in media ever since graduating from college, with her coverage ranging from traditional newspaper reporting to digital coverage of all things gaming, online betting, and nerd culture. She has traveled around the world pursuing that coverage, from the far coasts of the United States to the busy downtown core of Tokyo, Japan. Olivia’s favorite games include Overwatch and Super Smash Smash Bros, and she has been published at Esports Illustrated, Inven Global, EsportsInsider, Upcomer, and elsewhere.
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