Twitch CEO Dan Clancy has come under fire after “shamelessly” promoting his own channel in multiple other streams.
The CEO of Twitch streamed for four hours on July 18 as part of an ongoing charity marathon. However, prior to this broadcast, Clancy was seen self-promoting in multiple other popular Twitch channels, “shamelessly” asking for raids.
For the uninitiated, a raid is when a streamer sends all of their viewers over to another channel upon ending for the day. While requesting a raid isn’t explicitly against Twitch’s Terms of Service or Community Guidelines, it is typically shunned as poor etiquette. Repeated requests, on the other hand, border on spam and would thus be policy violations.
As per his own description, Clancy nonetheless ignored the moral implications and went about asking for raids for an upcoming charity stream. Now having been caught in the act, the CEO of the streaming company is being raked over the coals.
Twitch CEO Dan Clancy promotes own channel in other streams
“I am shamelessly going into chat of streamers I know to ask for raids when they are done,” a chatlog on Twitch from Clancy’s account reads. “I am doing my first charity stream for St Jude’s as part of the GCX Marathon.”
The exact same message was shared across at least five channels, including the likes of Gassymexican, Fanfan, and others with a collective reach of more than a million followers. In one instance, a mod timed out the CEO of Twitch for what they perceived as self-promotion. Clancy’s account was blocked from chatting for 10 minutes.
Clancy was seeking to raise awareness of his leg of a broadcast featured as part of the GCX Marathon. This week-long streaming event spanning July 14-21 aims to raise money for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.
At the time of writing, the collective effort has generated over $350,000 USD in donations. Clancy’s four-hour broadcast helped drive roughly $4,000 USD.
There is no language in the Twitch Terms of Service or Community Guidelines that directly addresses self-promotion in other chatrooms, as typically, the onus is on the given streamer to determine their own rules in this regard.
However, there are clear rulings as to what is acceptable when it comes to “spam,” which Clancy’s actions border on.
“Spam and other deceptive practices create a negative user experience, decrease trust in our service, and mislead viewers, creators, and advertisers,” the Community Guidelines state. “
Any content or activity that disrupts, interrupts, harms, or otherwise violates the integrity of Twitch services or another user’s experience or devices is prohibited.”
After being circulated across social media, primarily by streaming reporter Zach Bussey, many were quick to chime in with their outrage.
“Not only disrespectful but also legit spam,” one VTuber said. “Wow… Even if it’s for charity, that’s still so disrespectful and shameful,” another X user chimed in.
Content creator Gothalion, who co-founded the charitable event soon addressed the situation too, labeling Clancy’s actions “rude as f***.
“How did you not set up cameos and corporate support? Why was this reactive instead of proactive?”
At the time of writing, Clancy nor Twitch as a whole has issued a response to the controversy. We’ll be sure to update you here should that change.