Twitch has announced a series of updates to provide users with more accurate viewership information in the ongoing battle with viewbotters.
Much like cheating in video games like Call of Duty, streaming platforms are in a constant war with viewbotters inflating their numbers to make it seem like they’re more popular than they actually are.
Twitch CEO Dan Clancy has admitted that it’s “tricky” to deal with viewbots. In August, StreamsCharts reported that suspicious Twitch streams generated over 30 million fake watch hours, which is comparable to the weekly viewership of a top series on Netflix. Kick also clocked in 20 million fake watch hours, too
As the Amazon-owned platform continues to crack down on viewbotted streams through increased detection, Twitch is now targeting another area with inauthentic views: clips.
Twitch reveals new clip view updates and it could help boost small streamers
On November 19, Twitch announced it was updating how clip views are counted in an effort to “better reflect genuine viewer engagement.”
According to the site, they fixed an issue that was inadvertently inflating clip view counts and made view counting more consistent across all platforms such as web and iOS. Clip views from Stories will now also count towards view totals.
Twitch also says it implemented better filters for bot traffic and enabled improved clip analytics, which could lead to new features down the road.
“While clip views may initially appear lower, you’ll now have cleaner and more consistent cross-platform clips data that will ultimately help provide you with better insights into clip performance,” Twitch explained, adding that they’ll be updating the clip view counting system on a regular basis.
These updates could result in legitimate creators with viral clips being featured far more often on a category’s “popular clips” page, resulting in more organic viewership and discoverability.
We’ll have to see what effect these updates have on streamers and what more Twitch has in store in the near future as the fight against viewbotting wages on.
