Networked Responses to Networked Harassment? Creators’ Coordinated Management of “Hate Raids” on Twitch

This study investigates how social media creators navigate and respond to severe cases of ongoing, networked harassment. Drawing on 19 in-depth interviews with Twitch streamers who experienced a form harassment known as “hate raids” the platform, including three built shared tools combat these attacks, this analysis pays particular attention nature coordination responses extent which creators’ are also networked. study’s findings suggest that, in absence communication technical support from Twitch, started ad hoc networks for sharing tools, offering strategies managing audiences during providing emotional peer creators. Yet were unevenly accessed across interviewed often existed only temporarily. furthermore indicate that communities primarily around individual streamers, fosters supportive connections within streamer’s audience community but limits opportunities solidarities class creative workers. I conclude by considering more broadly platform infrastructures can facilitate or constrain different forms building among their audiences.