The year 2020 has been rough for many Twitch streamers, among random bans by Twitch staff and the threat of DMCA looming over their head, the current influx of fake followers has resulted in another headache for many streamers.
According to the third-party stat-tracking site twitchmetrics.net, a large number of Twitch streamers, have seen their follower numbers suddenly increase to double or more than double in just a day due to what seems to be an infestation of follower bots on the platform. Usually gaining a large number of followers on social media and streaming sites might seem like a great feat but the sudden spike in the number of followers caused due to an influx of bots might result in these streamers getting banned on the platform.
Recently on Twitch, several big streamers have seen their number of followers skyrocket but viewers remaining constant. Chance “Sodapoppin” Morris is one such unlucky streamer whose followers doubled almost instantly. Around December 17-18, Sodapoppin gained almost 3.5 million rocketing him up to nearly 7 million followers overall.
Another streamer, Heelmike also found himself in the same situation. Heelmike gained over 2.5 million followers and just under him, Gonedoc another streamer who gained 2.4 million followers.
Next up was U.S. streamer Shofu who amassed 1.2 million. The strangest of the bunch was streamer Lolnatie who got 890,000 followers taking her follower count from just 10,000 to 900,000 in a day. She gained 89 times more followers than she had before, numbers that are simply unheard of in any situation.
Afterward, many people pointed out this strange behavior everyone came to an agreement that these streamers were just unfortunate and were likely targeted by bots in an attempt to raise suspicion of TOS violation to get their channels permanently banned from the platform.
Maybe those responsible are just some huge fans and just wanted to give some extra followers to their favorite streamers as a holiday gift and accidentally opened flood gates of followers resulting in this situation. Twitch is yet to make any comment on the situation, so the fate of Sodapoppin and others is still unknown.
