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US army retreats from Twitch as recruitment drive backfires
Source: The Guardian
US army retreats from Twitch as recruitment drive backfires
Withdrawal follows criticism over alleged use of game streaming site to attract recruits
Alex Hern UK technology editor
@alexhern
Published on Thu 23 Jul 2020 16.42 BST
The US army has retreated from Twitch after a series of guerrilla actions by critics rendered its military recruitment drive untenable, and potentially unlawful.
Both the US army and navy have been active since 2019 on the video game streaming site, where their official esports teams share footage of them playing competitive games such as Rainbow Six and Counterstrike to help with “making connections between prospects and recruiters”, according to a leaked social media guide.
In recent weeks, their presence on the platform had drawn significant criticism. Led by the Twitch user Jordan Uhl, waves of viewers began following the accounts, waiting 24 hours to evade spam filters, and then asking the soldiers and sailors to comment on everything from Eddie Gallagher, a former Navy Seal charged with war crimes, to the My Lai massacre, when American soldiers killed hundreds of South Vietnamese civilians.
The army’s Twitch channel banned the offending users, prompting some lawyers to point out that they may have had their first amendment rights violated.
“The government can’t try to engineer the conversation of the public by saying ‘only people who agree with us can respond’,” Katie Fallow, a lawyer at the Knight First Amendment Institute, said on Monday. “The first amendment means the government can’t kick someone out or preclude them based on their viewpoint.”
-snip-
Withdrawal follows criticism over alleged use of game streaming site to attract recruits
Alex Hern UK technology editor
@alexhern
Published on Thu 23 Jul 2020 16.42 BST
The US army has retreated from Twitch after a series of guerrilla actions by critics rendered its military recruitment drive untenable, and potentially unlawful.
Both the US army and navy have been active since 2019 on the video game streaming site, where their official esports teams share footage of them playing competitive games such as Rainbow Six and Counterstrike to help with “making connections between prospects and recruiters”, according to a leaked social media guide.
In recent weeks, their presence on the platform had drawn significant criticism. Led by the Twitch user Jordan Uhl, waves of viewers began following the accounts, waiting 24 hours to evade spam filters, and then asking the soldiers and sailors to comment on everything from Eddie Gallagher, a former Navy Seal charged with war crimes, to the My Lai massacre, when American soldiers killed hundreds of South Vietnamese civilians.
The army’s Twitch channel banned the offending users, prompting some lawyers to point out that they may have had their first amendment rights violated.
“The government can’t try to engineer the conversation of the public by saying ‘only people who agree with us can respond’,” Katie Fallow, a lawyer at the Knight First Amendment Institute, said on Monday. “The first amendment means the government can’t kick someone out or preclude them based on their viewpoint.”
-snip-
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/23/us-military-tactically-withdraws-from-game-streaming-site-twitch
A US army esports team. The army has ‘has paused streaming to review internal policies and procedures, as well as all platform-specific policies’. Photograph: @USArmyesports
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Related: The Navy Says It's Not Recruiting on Twitch. This Handbook Shows It Is (Vice)