This week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared before the United States Congress to answer questions regarding the social media platform’s involvement with Cambridge Analytica. During the election cycle, Cambridge Analytica gained access to the data of 50 million Facebook users and now Zuckerberg has been responding to concerns about privacy on the platform.
On the second day of Zuckerberg’s testimony, The Washington Post began to stream the events on its Twitch channel and as many could have predicted, the Twitch chat soon descended into chaos. The Twitch stream received over 10,000 concurrent viewers, with over one million people tuning in to watch one particular clip from the stream (embedded below). Many of these viewers took to the chat to flame Zuckerberg for his responses and the Mr. Destructoid emote was used with reckless abandon to highlight the fact that the responses from the Facebook CEO seemed robotic.
It wasn’t just Zuckerberg’s rehearsed lines that got a big reaction from Twitch chat, however. When Congress put particularly difficult questions to the Facebook CEO - questions that the executive seemed unable or unwilling to answer - the chat would blow up with “rekt” and even “play of the game.”
Some Twitch users also spammed the Tryhard (which features the face of popular streamer Trihex) emote when a black representative was on screen or when a black person was mentioned. The Trihex emote has racist connotations and is often used in a racially disparaging way. Use of the emote led Overwatch League team Dallas Fuel to punish player xQc, before agreeing to part ways with the controversial pro.
The chat section on video live-streaming platform Twitch is notorious for being incredibly critical and, at times, it can be straight up abusive. Twitch users aren’t shy about making their feelings known, as one Twitch streamer recently learned when he received backlash for playing Fortnite with Jake Paul and his friends. It seems that both the good side of Twitch (the funny, relatively inoffensive inside jokes) and the bad side of Twitch (the racism) were both on show here.
But aside from the commentary on the behavior of Twitch chat, many are noting that this is a creative way to get people involved in the political process. Although the case of Facebook and privacy is high profile, would the average Twitch user actively be discussing it or actively seeking information out on it had The Washington Post not streamed it on the platform?
Twitch is already a bonafide rival to CNN and MSNBC, getting more viewers than both of the cable news channels. So with this in mind, perhaps Twitch will further embrace politics and political debate in future.
Image source: (CC) Brian Solis, www.briansolis.com.
