Twitch’s controversial new boosted stream feature already had its fair share of critics, and is likely to get even more now that some channels are abusing it to troll with questionable stream titles.
Boosted streams is a feature currently in testing, that allows users to promote their channel, or the channels of streamers they follow, by paying for impressions, essentially, advertising the stream to other users.
Viewers can help streamers push their streams, by paying anywhere from $0.99 for 1,000 recommendations to a maximum of $500.
While it’s currently in a limited-time rollout with only certain streamers granted access to the boost feature, some have already begun abusing it.
Twitch boosted streams going really well pic.twitter.com/UWOqKMSuEY
— Jake Lucky (@JakeSucky) November 5, 2021
Boost stream feature abused by Twitch viewers
With the ability to advertise your stream to the masses, some have started boosting streams with titles that may not be exactly PG.
As shown by Jake Lucky on Twitter, CaliSCG’s stream titled “(18+) Free J*zz inside” was promoted by his community.
Despite CaliSCG seemingly knowing what he was doing, as the image used was a Kappa emote, synonymous with trolling and sarcasm, he was seemingly shocked when he was being boosted.
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“My stream’s getting boosted?” he gasped during a November 1 broadcast. “Wait, what the f**k? We’re now boosting this stream 1000x times? How does this work? I don’t know what the f**k is happening!”
Considering the title of the broadcast, CaliSCG was surprised why anyone would boost him and was even worried about getting banned as a result.
“This is literally the process of me getting banned,” he laughed.
Luckily, his stream wasn’t compromised and he wasn’t suspended, but it’s definitely something some users on the platform may want to be wary of in the future, especially if they’re worried about getting unwanted exposure.
With boosted streams still in testing, it will be interesting to see what changes Twitch ends up making before pushing the feature to all users.