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Twitch, CEO accused of laughing off reports of abusive Partners

Twitch and its CEO Emmett Shear have been accused of laughing off or ignoring reports of abusive Twitch Partners in a series of tweets from streamers and former staffers.

A music streamer who goes by Starling has kicked off the latest round of allegations, tagging Shear in a recent set of tweets that seemingly has led to a statement by Twitch twenty minutes later that said it “[takes] accusations of sexual harassment and misconduct extremely seriously.”

“[The CEO of Twitch] was asked in an All Hands meeting about partners using their platforms to abuse women – specifically using my case as an example,” Starling wrote. “He chuckled, said ‘wow, the things that go on on our platform, can’t really comment,’ & moved on.”

Starling noted that the interaction was recorded as part of a meeting more than one year ago, though she doesn’t have access to video. Despite the evidence, Shear hasn’t acted.

“He didn’t follow up, he didn’t address it,” she continued. “This is Twitch culture. Sweep the ugly stuff under the rug for profit.”

Starling’s tweet was met with others describing additional instances of abuse on the popular streaming platform.

Replying directly to Twitch’s statement, Samantha Wong said, “These are empty words considering you, as a company, minimized and dismissed my sexual harassment and continued to let the predator attend your events and gave him live segments at E3 on your official channel.”

Former Twitch VP Justin Wong responded directly to Samantha, saying, “I was a VP at Twitch and I reported this to the relationship-owning VP, the head of HR, and the CEO. All assured me it would be handled. Next year he was in the same VIP space at the same Twitch event. I was told he was the VP’s uncle and an ‘important’ initiative launch partner.”

Closer to home, Australian streamer Brad ‘BlessRNG’ Jolly has been accused of sexual harassment and has been let go from a relationship with Kanga.com.

A group called Survivors of the Streaming Industry has begun to collect all accusations inside a post on Medium, and encourages cictims to reach out to share their stories.


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Steve Wright

Steve's the owner of this very site and an active games journalist nearing twenty (TWENTY!?!) years. He's a Canadian-Australian gay gaming geek, ice hockey player and fan. Husband to Matt and cat dad to Wally and Quinn.