Widespread Viewbotting Scandal Rocks Twitch: 80% of Top Streamers Implicated in New Report
A bombshell accusation has been dropped by prominent streamer and industry expert Devin Nash, who alleges that a staggering
80% of the top 500 Twitch streamers are engaged in viewbotting. This explosive claim, supported by a detailed “writeup” circulated within the community , has sent shockwaves through the livestreaming world, highlighting a pervasive and destructive issue that Nash argues platforms are struggling to fix.
Nash’s agency experienced a perplexing problem when running ad campaigns on Twitch: brand conversions were worse on streams with higher viewer counts. In fact, streams with 500-1000 viewers often outperformed those with over 30,000. Initially attributed to diminishing returns in large communities, this theory was disproven by the strong performance of genuinely large streams. This led to a deeper investigation.
The findings were startling: an estimated 400 to 430 of the top 500 Twitch broadcasters are involved in viewbotting or being viewbotted, excluding embedded streams. Nash highlights how incredibly easy this practice has been. Until recently in 2025, it was possible to inflate viewer counts by simply opening multiple headless browser windows. While Twitch has reportedly patched this specific method, new strategies involve spinning up thousands of proxies through services like AWS and DigitalOcean.
The livestream/Twitch viewbot issue is way more prevalent and destructive for platforms than most people realize. It’s a difficult problem and no one knows how to fix it yet.
When my agency was running ads on Twitch, we noticed a weird problem:
Our brand’s conversions were…
— Devin (@DevinNash) July 30, 2025
Nash further criticizes Twitch’s apparent inaction, stating that the platform “doesn’t punish anyone for view botting (unless a streamer shows it on screen)”. Even then, enforcement is selective; Nash points to celebrities like Ray J openly admitting to viewbotting in July without facing punishment. Given the lack of discovery tools on Twitch and its “Kingmaker system,” Nash posits there’s little incentive for streamers to avoid viewbotting without a strong moral compass.
The problem extends beyond individual streamers. Nash reveals that agencies and managers are also setting up viewbots to deceive sponsors, leading to brands paying upwards of $20,000 (about $1-3 per CCV) for non-existent viewers. As a result, many major brands and their agencies have stopped advertising on Twitch due to poor campaign results , costing creators and platforms “millions” in lost revenue.
This issue, according to Nash, compounds an “Adpocalypse” he wrote about some months ago, where he predicted a 40-50% ad revenue drop due to Twitch platforming controversial political content. This ended up being “exactly what happened,” and this “one-two combo” puts Twitch on a difficult path.
Nash suspects that the most prominent viewbotting streamers will be revealed in the coming months, calling it an “open secret in the industry”. He credits figures like Trainwreckstv and Asmongold for bringing more attention to the issue, noting their genuine frustration as legitimate creators.
For Twitch to address this problem, Nash suggests implementing manual investigative teams to analyze top streams, taking down botnets, and issuing cease and desist orders to major providers. He believes an engineering-only approach might not be sufficient.
Nash asserts that livestreaming platforms are not incentivized to actively combat viewbotting, as higher viewer numbers attract more sponsors and make the platform “look” better. However, he warns that this will ultimately lead to consequences, drawing parallels to the esports industry’s downturn when brands realized teams couldn’t convert sales as claimed. He states that “Fast forward today and esports is a fraction of its original power and mostly owned by foreign interests and gambling proxies”.
Ultimately, Nash argues that legitimate creators are the most affected by these dishonest practices, playing a “rigged game” on platforms like Twitch. He advises creators to diversify, focusing on VOD and value creation on YouTube to drive viewers to platforms like Patreon, which offer fairer creator splits. Nash states that Twitch has not successfully invested in small creator discovery for a decade, leaving them to fend for themselves. He concludes that livestreaming will never be taken seriously by major sponsors unless these fundamental problems are addressed, and until then, “the industry will be a shadow of what it could be”.