A small Twitch streamer has become the fastest-growing channel on the platform – except not really, as Twitch’s battle against follow bots continues.
Streamer Micaylee suddenly shot to the top of follower charts for May 2021, ahead of big names like Adin Ross, Tubbo, and Amouranth, but it was clear that it wasn’t all it seemed to be.
Most streamers are doing well to get 10,000 followers in a single stream – never mind over one million. Micaylee was the victim of another wave of follow-bots, an issue that has been plaguing Twitch for a number of years.
Earlier in 2021, the platform took action, wiping millions of bot accounts from the platform, and sinking the follower count of many streamers, big and small. But, this purge hasn’t managed to stop the follow bots from continuing to cause problems, as a number of streamers since have been targetted.
Micaylee is the most egregious example yet, gaining over 1.7 million followers overnight. Her bio now reads: “SOME WEIRDO BOTTED OVER 1.7MILLION FOLLOWERS TO MY ACCOUNT.”
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In April, xQc, the most-watched streamer on Twitch, lost over 2 million followers as a result of the purge.
At the time, Twitch said, “We have been monitoring the rise of fake engagement on Twitch and have identified 7.5MM+ accounts that break our TOS by follow-botting and view-botting. We are taking action on these accounts and appreciate all of the reports about this issue.”
The platform also suggested that legal action may be an option in their fight against bots.
“A majority of these accounts were detected through ongoing machine learning technology that will continue to improve and we will continue to operate going forward. We engage in enforcement when necessary including pursuing legal action,” they stated.
But, so far, their efforts haven’t been enough to stop the massive influx of bot followers on some channels.