Twitch to update its reporting and appeals process as users suffer abuse and harassment

Angela Hession, Twitch's vice president of global trust and safety, says that the company will revamp its reporting and appeals process

In an open letter on Twitch's website, Angela Hession, the platform's VP of global trust and safety, outlined plans for the company in 2022 which included updating the user reporting and appeals process.

Hession acknowledged the harassment and abuse faced by online streamers, notably against people of colour, LGBTQIA+ community and military vets. She said that the "hate raids" were organised by "highly determined bad actors, but their effort doesn’t excuse what happened, or how long it continued".

Hession said that it's unlikely that they will be eliminated entirely but, "several updates this year — including back-end sitewide tech and Creator tools like phone-verified chat — have cut down on their numbers significantly."

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She shared that Twitch had so far removed over 15 million bot accounts this year and that number will grow. Twitch is already working on several, "proactive detection updates" and pursuing legal action against known offenders.

Besides these, the company is also working to improve its user reporting and appeals process but did not provide a timeline on when the new updates will launch.

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Also to be upgraded is Suspicious User Detection, an AI-based flagger that checks for and reports individuals who are identified as miscreants. Twitch will update the tool to provide more useful information to streamers, to help them make a better decision.