Viewers have started to boycottt Twitch in large numbers after an online campaign to ditch the site dubbed ‘A Day Off Twitch’ went viral. 

The protests come during a very difficult time for the website, with ‘hate raids’ proving to be a lightning rod in the community. These have led to some streamers being overwhelmed with abusive and sometimes racist language.

Players have been calling for swift and strong action against these, despite repeated responses from Twitch chiefs that action will soon be taken to prevent them.

In their latest attempt to force faster changes on the platform, a boycott has been organized and it’s fair to say it is hitting viewership hard.

Twitch stats from ‘A Day Off Twitch’ boycott

The full extent of the damage may not yet be on record, but early signs show that Twitch was taking one hell of a hit on September 1.

As seen in a tweet from Zach Bussey, preliminary data shows up to 5,000 few streamers were online at the time of writing.

He said: “According to charts from TwitchTracker, there are *currently* about 5000 fewer streamers live right now than last week and ~500,000 fewer viewers. (That’s a significant drop.)” 

Very preliminary data on #ADayOffTwitch

But according to charts from @TwitchTracker_, there are *currently* about 5000 fewer streamers live right now than last week and ~500,000 fewer viewers. (That's a significant drop.)#TwitchNews pic.twitter.com/NvZfkkMea6

— Zach Bussey (@zachbussey) September 1, 2021

While the online walkout is expected to last just one day, there are a number of other factors that may impact the platform’s viewership.

During ‘A Day Off Twitch,’ the unfortunately timed exit of one of Twitch’s biggest streamers – TimTheTatman – was confirmed. This news came just a day after his friend DrLupo joined the likes of Dr Disrespect, Valkyrae, CouRage and others in the club of exclusive YouTube Gaming contracts.

Bussey went on to state that there were around 12,000 fewer streamers online during the day, compared to the week before. The tracker also states views for the day were at 3.5 million, compared to 4.5 million the week before (typo in the tweet below).

As for the total number of streamers…

There are about 119,000 live right now.
That's down 12,000 from this time last week, and down about 13,000 two weeks ago. pic.twitter.com/kySubZTy1t

— Zach Bussey (@zachbussey) September 1, 2021

While the early post-mortem suggests that streamers leaving Twitch may have a lot to do with some live viewership statistics, there’s certainly been a dropoff in smaller streamers too.

Whether or not these figures will bounce back post-protest remains to be seen, but if the desired effect was to have thousands of people go dark – the boycott has certainly worked, no matter which way you slice it.

We will continue to update this page as new statistics become available.

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