The Presidential “Twitch” Debate.
One digital media platform that is taking the world by storm over the past year is Twitch. Recently the digital media source broke into the news for the amazing statistics revolving around viewers and audience numbers during the first presidential debate on September 29th on numerous streams. To have a firm understanding of this story, it is important to know the functions of Twitch and how the digital media works.
As referenced on Twitches main website, Twitch is a platform that allows anyone to live stream content of all kinds, typically the more popular accounts stream themselves playing video games, but now the game is changing. (https://www.twitch.tv/creatorcamp/en/learn-the-basics/twitch-101/) The streamers screen-share their monitors and commentate at the same time, which is where most of the entertainment value comes from because of the free spirited and sometimes vulgar remarks. The interesting part of the app is that every Twitch user account can login and watch any stream they find intriguing for free.
For the presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden multiple popular Twitch streamers watched and recorded the debate live on the platform for users so view and listen to their unfiltered commentary and opinions of the two presidential candidates. This was a unique occurrence because for most viewers of this debate and debates past, the program is watched on cable and then analysis of the action takes place afterwards. Now, younger generations are watching their favorite streamer discuss political topics and issues, while the candidates’ debate. This is rather problematic in many ways, firstly, many of the streamers are most likely poorly educated on the topics being discussed. Secondly, many of the streamers are most likely very biased towards one party or candidate. Lastly, instead of listening to the future President of the United States discuss plans for the future, viewers are listening to streamers talk over the debate. Now, it should be noted that this is not a completely irrational habit moving forward because there are positives from this movement. One, younger generations did participate in watching the debate; and two, not all streamers are incompetent on the issues at hand.
As mentioned earlier, the statistics of these streams were unbelievably large. According to the New York Times, one twitch user named Matthew Rinaudo, who has 640,000 followers was streaming the event. (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/business/media/twitch-trump-biden-debate.html) During Rinaudo’s stream he noted that he did not know anything about politics, saying, “I’m and idiot”. Rinaudo plays into the role of streamers that are unqualified to be discussing these issues to the audience that they have gained for separate reasons. Another streamer Hasan Piker, who is a political commentator, had 150,000 live viewers at one point during the debate. Piker was noted to be outspoken for the entirety of the stream and demonstrating the biases discussed previously. The total number of viewers on Twitch for the debate is not completely set in stone, but its safe to say that more than 500,000 people watched the debate through Twitch.
Interestingly enough, in February of 2020 amid the democratic candidate debates numerous Twitch streams of the debate were shut down in the middle of the program due to copyright issues. (https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/26/21154972/democratic-debate-false-copyright-claims-commentary-channels-twitch-chapo-trap-house-trihex) Twitch launched an investigation and found that a group named Praxis Political was behind the shutdowns and it never should have happened. The Verge interviewed countless popular streamers that voiced their opinions on the matter of outside sources trying to control personal streams and eliminate their first amendment rights.
Obviously, this type of digital media Platform is not going anywhere soon, and it is likely that the number of viewers on events like the presidential debate will continue to rise on Twitch. So, I ask, should anything be done to change this system. In light of the most important vote in my lifetime, will this have an effect on the election in a positive or negative way… We will find out soon.
