Twitch video gamers rise up against ‘hate raids’

San Francisco: Night after night, video game streamer RekItRaven watches as their feed is inundated with abusive messages. Hate raided, yet again.

In recent months the phenomenon of "hate raids" -- barrages of racist, sexist and homophobic abuse -- has been making life increasingly unpleasant for minority users of Twitch, the world’s biggest video game streaming site.

Raven, a Black 31-year-old who identifies as gender non-binary, fought back tears while describing the mental toll of logging into a site designed for entertainment. "It just gets hard," said the parent-of-two, who declined to reveal their real name over fears for their security. "I’m being hated on for my skin color, or my sexual preferences, when I don’t have control over that."

Twitch is more than a source of fun for Raven: it’s their job. The Virginia-based horror games player holds affiliate status, under which prolific and widely followed streamers get paid. Sick of racial slurs and messages referring to the Ku Klux Klan, Raven started a Twitter hashtag, #TwitchDoBetter.

The hashtag has become a magnet for complaints over the past month, largely from female and non-white players, that Twitch is failing to stop internet trolls running amok -- all while taking 50 percent of streamers’ earnings.