President Donald Trump has joined the popular streaming service, Twitch, and it’s a move that comes with a lot of mixed feelings.
As part of his re-election efforts, 45 broadcast his first live event on Twitch from Minneapolis Thursday evening, picking up more than 40,000 views. He currently has 48,000 followers with links towards his store, volunteer option or campaign donation.
This is an interesting move considering Trump’s previous negative comments on both video games and Amazon, which purchased Twitch in 2014 for $970 million.
In the past, Trump has criticized Amazon for “paying little or no taxes” and accused The Washington Post of being a “lobbyist” for Amazon, according to CNBC.
BREAKING: Donald Trump has launched an official Twitch channel and will be streaming his rally tonight live on Twitch at 8 PM EST
2019. video games. pic.twitter.com/hDpmRjrhK6
— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) October 10, 2019
″I have stated my concerns with Amazon long before the Election,” Trump said on Twitter in March 2018. “Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state & local governments, use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous”
He’s also sidestepping the real issue behind mass shooting by capitalizing on the rallying cry to blame video games as contributing factors to the recent mass shootings. Yet he’s using a platform that’s known for having video game content to do it.
“We must stop the glorification of violence in our society,” he said. “This includes the gruesome and grisly video games that are now commonplace. It is too easy today for troubled youth to surround themselves with a culture that celebrates violence. We must stop or substantially reduce this, and it has to begin immediately.”
while Trump launches a Twitch channel, just remember two months ago he held a press conference to say 'gruesome and grizzly' video games and the internet are the cause for mass shooting violence that only happens here in America pic.twitter.com/BHWUtVWuAX https://t.co/T6OV6AJrO8
— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) October 11, 2019
Trump now joins the list of a few politicians who’ve used Twitch as an influential ground for re-election/election time. Bernie Sanders joined not too long ago and before that we saw Andrew Yang utilize the popular streaming platform.
Twitch is walking a fine line right now with the politicians on the platform.
And honestly, I do not like it at all, especially with Trump’s racist rhetoric and campaign comments. It’s not needed, particularly in the gaming community. There’s are already levels of toxicity, racism and sexism online and this won’t do anything to solve it.
