US President Donald Trump added a new internet platform to his list of official handles on Thursday—Amazon-owned live streaming website Twitch.
Twitch is traditionally-used by video game players, who stream their games on a platform that has over 15 million daily active users. Twitch features a variety of content, however, including sports streams, music streams, creative and others.
Trump's first stream was of his campaign rally in Minnesota—the first since impeachment proceedings began against him, prompting a breakdown of relations between his administration and the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives.
Trump used the rally to denigrate Joe Biden and his son, repeating his controversial claim that Hunter Biden misused US influence in Ukraine to have a prosecutor fired who was investigating a company associated with Hunter. He spent particular time on criticising Representative Ilhan Omar—who represents the state of Minnesota in US House of Representatives.
Given that creators on Twitch can have streams that are several hours long, Twitch allows viewers to highlight sections of the stream and mark them as 'clips' with their own titles.
The most-viewed clip on Trump's Twitch, with 33,500 views, was of him stating that the Second Amendment of the US Constitution (the right to bear arms) would be gone without him. The title of this clip, however, was 'Yeah, right'.
Some of the user-generated clips on Trump's profile were supportive of him, with titles like "PREACH IT" and "good rhyme...mr.president". One, part of the top-four most viewed clips, featured the president stating that his administration had done more for healthcare than anyone else, and was captioned 'KEK'—a gamer slang term for LOL (laughing out loud).
Another clip showed how a solitary black member of Trump's audience was cropped out of the frame by the cameraperson filming the event.
Trump's decision to join Twitch has been met with controversy for two reasons: The fact that Twitch is owned by Amazon, a company whose CEO Trump has lambasted in ths past, and its reputation as a hub for gamers—a community Trump blamed for the rise in violent shootings in the US.
While Twitch allows streamers to monetise their feeds via live donations through tokens, politicians are not allowed to do the same. However, they bypass this by including a donation link on their page, rather than by using Twitch's built-in monetisation options.
Trump gained nearly 50,000 followers on his first day on Twitch. He is not the first 2020 hopeful to join the platform—Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders also has a profile on Twitch, which he joined in August. Sanders had over 88,000 followers as of writing, though seems to have had only one clip made of his streams.
