Female legends, which works for inclusive gaming, conducted a survey in 2021 where a majority of the 300 respondents stated that they had suffered harassment in connection with their gambling. The problem is thus not limited to Twitch but widespread in gaming in general, according to Lillie Klefelt.
"All gamers suffer hate and threats online, but when it comes to women, it's much more often about gender or personal attacks," Klefelt told Kulturnyheterna.
75 million messages removed
Klefelt's analysis is that this is because the interaction between players is often uncontrolled and that many children play without adult presence. She calls it a "general climate problem," which is also present in game streaming.
Twitch does not keep specific statistics on threats and harassment against individual users. But in the first half of 2022, more than 75 million chat messages that violate the platform's guidelines, which include rules on threats and harassment, were removed.
During the same period, more than three million accounts were permanently suspended for violating the guidelines.
Computer games industry: the difference between games and games
The industry organization Dataspelsbranschen shares the view that the gaming climate is problematic.
"I think it's due to several things, including a facelessness between the players and a lack of consequence," says spokesperson Per Strömbäck.
He believes that the industry has a responsibility to counteract threats and hatred by imposing consequences, such as suspending users. However, it is difficult, he says, when the conversation climate moves to a forum where companies no longer have control.
At the same time, he emphasizes that in many cases the gaming community is also cohesive and cares about each other, but that it differs between different types of games. Strömbäck gives simulator and action games as examples where the former has a less threatening jargon compared to the latter.