Last week while clicking around the Destiny 2 directory on Twitch we saw something we’d only heard about up until that point – a hate raid.

Raids are usually a nice way for a streamer to push viewers to another streamer’s channel when they go offline. This can lead to an increase in subscriptions or follows and for streamers looking to get partnered with Twitch, these raids can be rather important.

However, hate raids simply funnel racists, misogynists, bigots, homophones and worse to a streamer in hopes that they will pushed offline thanks to the sheer volume of hatred.

While Twitch did address the prevalence of hate raids in a Twitter thread, the overwhelming opinion from streamers is that Twitch is not acting fast enough. To Twitch’s credit, this is not an easy matter to address.

“Hate spam attacks are the result of highly motivated bad actors, and do not have a simple fix. Your reports have helped us take action–we’ve been continually updating our sitewide banned word filters to help prevent variations on hateful slurs, and removing bots when identified,” Twitch said in August.

Today, however, streamers have grown tired of waiting and as such #ADayOffTwitch has been organised to bring attention to the ongoing hate and harassment on the platform.

The protest was organised by a trio of streamers who spoke with The Verge about why the protest is being staged.

“I think it’s important to band together for the good of everyone who’s been affected and to show that we’re not gonna back down,” RekitRaven one of the streamers who organised the protest told The Verge.

But there appears to be resistance to the idea of taking a day off of streaming. For many streamers, taking a day off is simply not feasible or viable from a financial standpoint. Further to that, as some have argued, smaller streamers taking a day off may not even negatively affect Twitch.

“Nobody gives a f*** if you take a day off, nobody knows who you are. That’s the truth. If people got together and said ‘We’re all going to collectively do it”, I’d do it in a heartbeat because I do believe in the power of numbers,” Asmongold, one of the larger streamers on Twitch said during a stream.

While that sentiment seems harsh, Asmongold does have a point and a cursory look through Twitch reveals that there are still many streamers online.

However, the goal of this protest was to bring awareness to the matter and that appears to have happened.

Whether Twitch is going to be able to address the popularity of hate raids as quickly as streamers would like remains to be seen but it’s worth remembering that when it comes to bans and the like, large platforms need to excercise caution lest they unintentionally start banning folks who shouldn’t be.