Twitch nabs exclusive streaming deal with Blizzard for e-sports events
Twitch has some very serious moderation challenges ahead of them, that they haven't proven they're able to solve, before I can be convinced this is a good thing. Online communities rely on good moderators and moderation tools to be able to thrive.<p>I am a big Hearthstone fan so I enjoy watching the competitions sometimes. It's been consistently the highest viewed Blizzard game on Twitch for a long time now so it's important to bring up in this discussion.<p>PlayHearthstone[1] is the official channel for Hearthstone events so you would think it would be representative of how Blizzard wants to operate in the competitive space. Whether it is due to technology, lack of oversight, or simply not caring, Twitch chat is notoriously atrocious; rampant with trolling, vitriol, spamming, and terrible behavior.<p>To make things worse, there's absolutely no consistency with how events are moderated, if they are at all.<p>For one event, members are banned for simply asking questions, or providing constructive criticism to the casting of the event with mods creating trigger phrases or words that lead to users getting banned immediately without knowing why. For other events, the chatters are allowed to use all manner of racial, sexual, demeaning, and outright threatening and horrific text towards the casters, the events, and the participants.<p>It's disgusting to watch, completely unprofessional, and something that has been brought up multiple times by the community with no concrete resolution.<p>Either Blizzard finds it acceptable, Twitch finds it acceptable, or they haven't figured out how to do well in moderating live chats with thousands of people.<p>Given their track record, I'm hesitant to be excited about the exclusivity.<p>[1] - <a href="https://www.twitch.tv/playhearthstone" rel="nofollow">https://www.twitch.tv/playhearthstone</a>