Twitch CEO admits viewbot clampdown is “tricky” despite big changes

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Twitch CEO Dan Clancy acknowledged that handling viewbots is “challenging,” and noted that other platforms are also experiencing similar problems.

Using bots to artificially increase someone’s online presence has been a common practice for quite a while. These bots are sometimes used with harmful intent, and other times deliberately, as some people try to cause trouble for creators by inflating their follower count and live viewer numbers.

This is an issue Twitch has been working on for some time. In July, the Amazon-owned platform said they would be significantly better at finding viewbots, fake viewers, and other dishonest ways of increasing engagement.

In August, Twitch experienced a 9% decrease in total viewers. The livestreaming platform reached its lowest viewership in five years, even when factoring in that viewbots contributed an estimated 30 million hours of artificial watch time.

Dan Clancy jokes about viewbots on Kai Cenat stream

Even Twitch CEO Dan Clancy made a joke about fake viewers (viewbots) while on Kai Cenat’s Mafiathon 3. This happened after Tylil mentioned that his own viewer numbers had gone down.

“Wow, it almost seemed like you were artificially inflating your own viewer count!” Clancy said jokingly. But then he shifted to a more serious topic, acknowledging that it’s “difficult” to manage fake viewers and profiles.

It’s a difficult issue because these bots are constantly present,” he explained, responding to Kai’s question about whether Twitch had made any improvements to its rules against viewbotting. “This is true for TikTok and Instagram as well, but yes.”

As Clancy points out, this isn’t limited to Twitch, but the Amazon-owned platform has faced greater attention than its competitors.

Twitch also had to address reports that fake bot accounts were being given gifted subscriptions instead of real viewers. This came after streamer Quin69 pointed out that newly created accounts were receiving a large number of these gifted subs.

We remain dedicated to finding and stopping the use of viewbots, fake accounts inflating viewership, and any other misleading activity that artificially boosts engagement on our platform,” a representative told TopMob.

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2025-10-01 13:22