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Twitch has revealed new information about just how much viewbots actually help streamers as the platform cracks down on nefarious users.
Viewbotting has been a major problem on streaming platforms for ages with many creators being accused of artificially inflating their stats through bots.
Many big names in the industry, such as Reed Duchscher, the founder and CEO of Night Media, which works with Kai Cenat and Hasan, even encouraged streamers to viewbot because everyone else is.
During a recent broadcast, Twitch CEO Dan Clancy delved into the site’s fight against viewbots and explained that streamers boosting their stats aren’t benefitting as much as they might think.
Twitch CEO says viewbotters aren’t helping streamers get real viewers
According to Clancy, viewbotters are having a very small impact on discover, so it’s not exactly hurting new streamers.
“On our discover surfaces, there are two types of sort that you can use. High to low or recommended. Today, 60% of sessions use the recommended sort, not high to low. And this is default for new viewers and logged out sessions,” he said.
Basically, while streamers who are viewbotting may show up first when sorting streams from most viewers, that’s not what users are using to find content.
“Viewbots have almost no impact on the recommended sort,” he said. “If you’re using recommended, you’re not being influenced by viewbots and it doesn’t help promote the channel.”
Further backing this up, Clancy revealed that only a small amount, just 7% of 5-minute plays, are driven by browse and discover tabs when sorted from high viewer counts to low.
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We’ve seen questions about how bots impact discovery. Our teams looked into this closely, and found that actual impact to discovery is super low.@djclancy999 addresses how this works in categories with high to low sorting on both Web and Mobile: pic.twitter.com/QTSduD0hG8
— Twitch Support (@TwitchSupport) May 22, 2026
This should come as a bit of a relief for smaller streamers worried about not being seen because viewbotters are being recommended before they are.
At the same time, Twitch has announced it’s introducing a viewership cap to try and deter viewbots, with those caught also facing longer penalties over time.
