On August 21, 2025, Twitch launched a major viewbot crackdown, deploying upgraded detection systems to remove artificial viewers and improve the authenticity of viewership data. However, according to industry analyst Zach Bussey on X, the platform may be reversing some of its measures, as creators are seemingly back to their original view counts.In his post, Bussey mentioned how a majority of creators he reviewed on Saturday, August 23, two days after the crackdown, have risen back to their 30-day average viewership:"It's a bit too early to be sure, but it looks like Twitch undid this change today. Almost every example I looked at on Saturday that showed streamers having their lowest performing streams of the year between Thursday-Saturday, are back at their 30-day average today. (That or every viewbot service has found a solution already.)"He also left room to speculate that view-botting services may have found a workaround for the platform's latest policies. Soon after these polices came into place, Twitch saw a steep drop in overall viewership, up to 24% compared to the previous week.Creators like xQc weighed in, claiming that the view-botting tactic was strategically used by agencies to inflate their creators' metrics and gain more advertising traction:"I’ve been thinking, WHY orgs would bot heavily? Then the answer seemed almost obvious. Talent agencies receive a % from ad streams their talent does. By inflating their streamers they can sell massive ad packages in bulk and take in much higher sums. To put simply, fraud."Looking at xQc's comments on Twitch's view-botting countermeasuresxQc @xQcLINKHere’s an absolutely abysmal example of this. The fact that this can go on for YEARS without the platform taking action is just sad really. If Twitch doesn’t care then why should anyone really?On August 23, xQc shared data showing how a certain creator's viewership dropped significantly after the platform's crackdown. He also mentioned that creators who are part of groups or organizations have a higher number of artificial viewers:"Twitch has cracked down on bots in the 2-3 days and viewbotters/victims of viewbotting have been exposed. Streamers that are part of groups/orgs are seemingly being botted much more heavily. I don’t want to start witch hunts but the data is interesting. Go see for yourself."The streamer then created a thread, sharing his thoughts on view-botting as a whole.In other news, xQc expressed his frustration with MrBeast following their TeamWater collaboration, stating that the experience made him feel as though he were a scammer.