Twitch has outlined how the company plans to protect its streamers from harassment while combating practices like hate raids in 2022.

Vice President of Global Trust and Safety at Twitch, Angela Hession, published an open letter on January 12. It details steps the platform has taken to thwart “unacceptable” trends in 2021 and what they want out of the new year.

“As 2021 showed us, there will always be highly motivated bad actors who work to spread hate and evade our protections,” Hession wrote.

“So even as we think and build at scale, we also need to consider these specific outliers who are set on causing harm on our service and others.”

Moving forward, Twitch will look to “strike a better balance” between communicating to its communities and keeping “bad actors” at bay, she added.

Twitch security in 2022

Twitch is exploring more ways to protect its streamers from the harassment and hate raids that took over discourse in 2021.

The company outlined a few improvements that will be available for streamers in the new year:

• Improvements to the user reporting and appeals process
• Updates to how Creators can use the information from Suspicious User Detection
• Updates to Twitch sexual content policy
• Updates about Twitch Safety Advisory Council, which are inspired by user feedback
• More and better educational content and programming on Twitch Safety Center, live streams, and more

In providing more tools to Twitch streamers, the company aims to deter harmful behavior from users and empower communities through tools they can control.

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The company also wants to educate people on safe practices and communication, as well as find a balance with content that “may not appeal to all audiences.”

The open letter comes off a rough year for Twitch as top streamers made the switch to YouTube, while native broadcasters wrestled with metas that clashed with their rules and saw a spike in harassment.

• Read more: Is getting DMCA banned the new Twitch meta?

Twitch was largely reactive to problems as they would arise in 2021. The platform faced criticism for inaction or its silence in the face of bots and hate raids, among other gray areas like the gambling and TV/Movie reaction metas.

As the lead on Twitch safety, Hession wants to incorporate more tools to control broadcasts as well as have more open communication to grow trust with its streamers.