Thread by @MorningBrew

A hacker poured out a Big Gulp of Twitch’s data yesterday, uploading 125 GB of stolen secrets to 4chan.

The leaked data includes...

1) All of the platform’s source code, including the changes made to the code dating back to Twitch’s 2011 launch.

2) The deets on a rumored competitor to Steam, a popular online game store. Apple, Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft all run lucrative gaming stores, and apparently, Amazon (which owns Twitch) is feeling FOMO.

3) Records of how much creators have been paid for streaming on Twitch since August 2019...and it’s a fair amount:

• 81 streamers have earned $1+ million since August 2019.
• The top five earners all made $5+ million.
• Critical Role, a group of voice actors who stream themselves playing Dungeons &
Dragons, was the top earner at nearly $10 million.

Why go after Twitch?

The hacker wrote that they want to “foster more disruption and competition in the online video streaming space” because Twitch’s community “is a disgusting toxic cesspool.”

Notably, they included #DoBetterTwitch in their post on 4chan, a hashtag that was popularized earlier this year by gamers boycotting Twitch over “hate raids”—when users band together to barrage a channel with insults.

Zoom out: The video game industry has been put on blast this year for fostering toxic behavior and hate speech. Gaming giant Activision Blizzard was sued in July for its “pervasive ‘frat boy’ culture” and mistreatment of female employees.

morningbrew.com/daily/stories/…

Looking ahead...the hacker ominously labeled this “part one” of “an extremely poggers leak.”

morningbrew.com/daily/stories/…