Kick boss blasts Twitch’s new viewbot ‘protections’ and claims they won’t ban big streamers

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Bijan Tehrani, a founder of Kick, has criticized Twitch for implementing a new rule that limits how many viewers streamers can have if they’re caught using bots to artificially increase their audience numbers.

Using bots to view streams has been a recurring issue for online broadcasters. Some streamers are targeted by others who use bots to try and get them banned, while others intentionally use bots themselves to make their viewership numbers appear higher.

Twitch has been making several changes over the past year to address unfair practices. Most recently, on May 7th, Dan Clancy announced that streamers caught repeatedly using fake viewers (viewbots) will now have their viewership capped.

Using viewbots hurts our business and negatively impacts all content creators, so we’re taking action with a new system launching this month. We won’t be sharing which creators are penalized or when those penalties happen.

Kick boss hits out at Twitch over viewbotting cap

Bijan Tehrani, a co-founder of Kick, has questioned whether Twitch will actually target well-known streamers with this approach.

He shared on X (previously Twitter) that their team got the idea from Twitch, who already limits how many viewers are shown.

Popular streamers likely won’t face bans, because the same accusations of cheating (like someone else using bots to inflate their numbers) often come up. Plus, they usually have ways to get genuine viewers and avoid detection. Twitch’s ‘stream together’ feature even lets streamers subtly boost their visibility using a friend’s account.

This is a massive, ongoing effort. We initially got the idea for limiting view counts from Twitch employees years ago. Twitch won’t ban popular streamers, and we anticipate similar issues – people will claim others are using bots to inflate their numbers. Plus, those streamers often have ways to get genuine viewers, bypassing any limitations. The stream…

— Bijan Tehrani 🇮🇷 (@BijanTehrani) May 7, 2026

Tehrani stated that Kick is actively working to eliminate visibility for streamers caught using viewbots, and encouraged Twitch to implement similar measures.

Since Kick launched as a competitor to Twitch, the two platforms have been constantly responding to each other’s features. Twitch’s Clancy even claimed Kick was simply imitating their approach.

Okay, so Clancy basically said Kick straight-up ripped off Twitch’s website. He thinks other platforms at least tried to do their own thing, but Kick just… copied it. It’s pretty direct, according to him.

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2026-05-08 14:19