If you’re the kind of streamer who feels a need to inflate your numbers, Twitch has some bad news for you.
Today in a post on the company blog, Twitch’s Matthew DiPietro announced the company has filed lawsuits against the creators of the most popular botting programs for Twitch.
These bots, which include chat bots, view bots, and follower bots, are used to inflate streamer profiles and bump them up in Twitch’s reccomendation algorithms on the platform.
Botting is against Twitch’s terms of service.
A streamer with a higher follower count, bolstered by seemingly real bots chatting, may be more likely to appear in a reccomended Twitch feed then a user a lower follower account whose viewers are all real.
Bots can also be used to harass streamers and interfere with their attempt at a partnership, or get their channel suspended, writes DiPietro.
DiPietro says the company has long sought to combat bots by using engineering and moderation solutions, but now sees the need to take legal action. You can read the full legal brief here.