The Question We Can’t Avoid
What happens when 80% of Twitch’s top 500 streamers are accused of inflating their numbers with fake viewers? That’s the reality Twitch is now facing after a wave of investigations and a sudden purge of inflated views.
Viewbotting, which is when automated bots or fake accounts artificially raise view counts, hasn’t just tilted the playing field. It gutted trust in livestreaming, cost honest creators real money, and drove advertisers away. Twitch didn’t just miss this. Amazon, Twitch’s parent company, knew or should have known.
How the Scam Works
Twitch ranks streams by concurrent viewers (CCV). More CCV means higher placement on Twitch’s directory (rankings). That leads to more visibility for streamers and the games they’re playing and a shot at viral growth.
Brands pay streamers based on CCV, usually $1–$3 per CCV per hour. Those fake views can turn into real money. A 20,000-CCV streamer could earn $43,800 an hour from a sponsorship deal (minus agency cuts) even if 30–40% of those “viewers” are bots.
Talent agencies claim they don’t bot for clients, but they happily sign botted streamers. They’re not against profiting from sponsorship deals their talent earns through inflated views, and plead ignorance. Some insiders admit agencies make 30–40% of their revenue this way. Some creators say sponsors and gaming companies botted their streams too, knowing Twitch gave advance warning before crackdowns. Almost like Twitch wanted to protect the viewbotters.
The Real Scale of the Problem
When Twitch finally rolled out new anti-bot measures this summer, the results were brutal. Viewership dropped 11% platform-wide practically overnight. Some big names lost half their audiences instantly.
Industry insiders like Devin Nash estimate 30–40% of Twitch’s total viewership has been fake for years. That means every stat, every growth chart, every “Twitch is bigger than ever” headline Amazon pushed was bloated by bots.
This isn’t just embarrassing, it’s also expensive. Advertisers figured it out. Between 2022 and 2025, major brands yanked millions from Twitch, redirecting budgets to YouTube and other platforms with far lower fraud rates. Twitch revenue dropped from $1.96 billion in 2023 to $1.8 billion in 2024, about $160 million lost in a single year. That’s advertisers saying: we don’t trust you.
Remember, this is on top of inflated views due to Twitch Drops and the ridiculous money made through Hype Trains.
Why Twitch Let It Happen
So why didn’t Twitch step in earlier? Easy: everyone at the top had incentives to keep the scam running.
Streamers got sponsorship money. Agencies got higher cuts. Twitch got to show “growth” to Amazon and advertisers.
The only losers were advertisers who paid for fake eyeballs and honest creators, buried under botted streams.
That’s the part that infuriates me the most. Twitch rarely bans viewers and streamers for viewbotting. Unless the bots literally appear on screen, they look the other way. “Fear of false positives,” they say but false positives aren’t the problem. Lost trust is.
Amazon Can’t Pretend It Didn’t Know
Let me be blunt: I don’t want to hear another excuse from Twitch CEO Dan Clancy. I want Amazon to explain themselves. Since 2023, Twitch ads have been sold and managed through Amazon Ads. That means Amazon had direct access to the raw data, the irregularities, and the complaints. They had the tools to spot inflated numbers.
If YouTube can keep its invalid traffic rate around 3.5%, Amazon has no excuse for letting Twitch sit at 30–40%. They knew and they chose not to act.
What Needs to Happen Next
Here’s the only real solution: ban every streamer who used viewbots. Permanently. No exceptions, no slaps on the wrist. Then go ahead and ban viewers and subscribers who participated. If you boosted your favorite streamer with bots, you’re part of the fraud.
Talent agencies need to be held accountable. If they profited off inflated numbers, investigate and fine them. A part of me is hoping this will force Amazon to be transparent. They need to publish accurate, audited viewership data and a plan for permanent anti-bot enforcement.
Will this hurt? Absolutely, but the alternative is worse. Keep tolerating viewbotting, and Twitch becomes a hollow platform with fake numbers and zero transparency.
Will it happen? Nope. Why? Twitch dies if they dare do it. All their “highly viewed” streams would be banned.
The Bigger Picture
This is more than a Twitch scandal. It’s a case study in what happens when platforms let fraud run wild because the short-term profits look good on a quarterly report. The livestreaming industry is still young. Trust is its currency and Twitch has burned that trust to the ground.
Does Amazon have the backbone to fix this? Or will Twitch bleed out while YouTube, TikTok, and emerging platforms scoop up the creators and advertisers who want a fair playing field? Because make no mistake: Twitch can survive losing a few streamers. It can’t survive losing trust.
Ok, let’s be real… TikTok is making money but they have a problem with fakeness too. TikTok is being sold. For Twitch/Amazon, it’s hard to sell Twitch when all the data is fake.
