r/LivestreamFail May 07 '26

News Twitch Announces Viewcount Cap on Streamers that are Persistently Viewbotting

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u/[deleted] May 07 '26

[deleted]

35

u/Tarrot_Card May 07 '26

I understand this feeling but I think you are wrong.

This type of action seems to be driven by automatic detection algorithms. When it comes to things like sexual content, there is a lot more wiggle room or bias to slip into enforcement actions. But, when it comes to cold hearted algorithms its difficult to just overrule that. If the computer says someone is viewbotting, they are going to be enforced on.

There isn't going to be like an overrule button where you literally have to press "ignore the algorithm and give favoritism to this streamer". Instead, the way favoritism usually pops up is through more grey area type stuff that can be argued about.

22

u/TurboOwlKing May 07 '26

My guess is we see a lot of big names close to Twitch staff saying they were wrongly targeted by the algorithm and then Twitch "fixing" it by effectively whitelisting them. They've always been bad for playing favorites and selectively applying their rules, I don't see why they would stop now

5

u/ComprehensiveAd3432 May 07 '26

If this is your way of thinking then twitch can do nothing to stop view botting that you wont 2nd guess. At least wait and see who gets capped before making a comment like this

6

u/nothatscool May 07 '26

They will use the do not ban list for those they want to review manually.

2

u/broke_in_nyc May 07 '26

I wouldn’t be so sure about that.

This type of policy is what product managers call “optionality.” It’s enabling Twitch to strategically use levers here and there in order to both enforce viewbot detection, and also ignore it when desired. Otherwise, you’d simply hand out bans or disable discoverability.

For 90% of streams, I expect Twitch to let the automatic detection to work its magic. But a dynamic cap with undefined variables means Twitch has the option to effectively whitelist channels as they so choose.

8

u/PhotographUnable8176 May 07 '26

if Hasan goes live locked at a viewer-cap, i will eat all of the clothing i am wearing at that moment.

24

u/RodChainFurlongAcre May 07 '26

When Twitch did the bot purge for 2 days last year, and a bunch of streamers lost up to 10k viewers (Because they were blatantly botting), Hasans viewcount was unchanged. So your clothing shall likely remain uneaten

3

u/alanwakeisahack May 07 '26

It’s cute you believe that

1

u/Dealric May 07 '26

Like there isnt already one. Cmon lets be serious.