Amazon-owned streaming platform Twitch recently released an update on channel viewcounts. This was made to curb the effects of viewbottling or creators that may misrepresent their audience count. Viewbotting violates Twitch's Terms of Service and is considered a form of fake engagement, and the platform explicitly states that this practice is forbidden.2025 has seen multiple claims of fake viewership, and in one particular instance, xQc publicly accused others, specifically Kai Cenat’s associates Lil Rodney Son and RaKai, of inflating views; this was based on suspicious viewer-to-chat ratios and sudden unexplained spikes in viewership.Now, Twitch reported that their team is "dedicated to ensuring that the views that show up on channels reflect actual viewership," and will be rolling out an update to better identify these viewbots:"We recently made changes that meaningfully improved our ability to identify viewbots, inauthentic viewership, and other potentially fake engagement. These changes will roll out over the next few weeks."Further, the website mentions that this update will target artificial or inflated views, subsequently having a direct impact on channel viewership:"So, if your channel was viewbotted, or if some of your viewers are artificial or inflated, you will see an impact to your channel’s viewcount. This also means that third-party sites that publish unverified Twitch viewcounts are going to see changes to that data over time."Overall, the Amazon-owned company mentioned that it is committed to improving the viewing and streaming experience for users and creators alike:"We recognize that viewbotting can be out of the streamer’s control. In making these changes, our goal is to improve the experiences for both streamers and viewers."Twitch CEO Dan Clancy speaks on the website's latest anti-viewbotting updateFollowing up on @TwitchSupport's post on the update, Daniel Clancy, the organization's CEO, spoke on how tracking these bots can sometimes be difficult:"First, I want to be very clear that we always try to detect and eliminate viewbots. However, doing this in a manner that does not eliminate real viewers can be tricky. While I know for some of you it has been frustrating, we wanted to take our time to make sure we were not inadvertently filtering out real users."One of the tasks is to keep real viewers watching while the artificial ones are removed. Additionally, Clancy spoke on how bots are dynamic and can come in "all shapes and sizes":"Second, I wanted to highlight that bots come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes streamers may be actively working with third parties to inflate their numbers. In other cases, the bots may be used to harass streamers. We don’t want either type..."In other news, the platform’s updated Terms of Service clarify its Simulcasting (multi‑streaming) Guidelines. They state that while creators are allowed to live‑stream simultaneously on other platforms, they must not offer a degraded experience on Twitch.