Twitch pledges to crack down on viewbots and chatbots

Twitch will take a tougher approach to bots that artificially increase viewers, followers and chat activity, the company has promised. For example, there is now an indictment against seven influential bot makers.

The legal action was announced on Twitch’s blog. Bot makers are accused in the indictment of fraud and unfair competition, among other things. That’s why Twitch wants the bot makers’ domain names to be confiscated, and payment processors to stop providing their services to those involved. A total of seven Twitch bot creators are being sued.

According to the video streaming site, bots are used to artificially increase the number of views on video streams, or increase the number of followers of a channel. Also, the chat activity can be influenced with bots. Because videos and creators seem so more popular, they are more likely to be featured prominently in Twitch’s channels. Ultimately, based on their popularity, creators can also be selected for a Partnership program, with which they can earn extra money.

Twitch also claims to have taken technological measures to discover bots. The company also calls on its users to report situations where bot involvement is suspected, and to ask creators to stop purchasing bot services from developers.