During his most recent Twitch stream, Mizkif called out an unnamed fan for view-botting and said he wasn’t bothered by the fake views.

New methods of being famous online are being discovered as streaming becomes more and more popular. Some content producers occasionally employ view-botting in particular to fast advance through the ranks and achieve attention. The method uses bots to provide phoney views for videos and live streams, improving channel statistics and, ideally, their ranking in a platform’s algorithm. Matthew “Mizkif” Rinaudo, a well-known Twitch streamer and Youtuber, has now retaliated against an unnamed fan for allegedly view-botting his live stream.

“Whoever is doing this to me and thinks that I hate this, you know I love this, right?” Mizkif laughed as he told his chat during a June 26 broadcast on Twitch.

Maintaining that he was not the one behind the fake views but instead a victim of view-botting. “You think I care?” The streamer continued, appearing unbothered by the onslaught of bot comments taking over his chat.

While novice streamers or viewers seeking to increase the popularity of their favourite content providers may find view-botting tempting, fraudulent engagement is still against Twitch’s rules. The website published an article outlining the negative consequences of view-botting, saying that “False viewer growth is not helpful to establishing a career in broadcasting because the ‘viewers’ do not contribute to a healthy, highly engaged community.” 

It’s crucial to keep in mind that just because a channel’s view count has been artificially inflated, the channel owner may not necessarily be responsible, according to Twitch.