Lesson 14. Setting up Twitch for streaming

Twitch is the leading game streaming platform. Its popularity, of course, makes it a target for spammers, scammers, and trolls. Therefore, if you stream yourself or follow hotshot gamers, be sure to configure proper security, which we can help with.

The first step is to set a strong password and enable two-factor authentication. This can be done on the Security & Privacy tab.

As you might expect, it contains a whole section of privacy-related settings to protect viewers from spammers and scammers, and broadcasters from unwanted advice.

You can also block individual users who get up your nose. That means they won't be able to send you direct messages, add you as a friend, and so on. You can also block DMs (known as whispers) from unknown users. This is worth doing to avoid being hounded by spammers.

Spam on Twitch is not limited to messages. Here it takes on another, rather unusual form — for advertising purposes, you can be gifted subscriptions to channels of no interest to you. But this problem is also solvable by going back to the Security & Privacy settings and blocking gift subscriptions to channels that you don't follow.

Lastly, we advise you to hide information about your subs and gifts. If attackers see that you've been using an expensive subscription to a popular streamer for a year, or have made a ton of gifts, they might hanker after your money and start bombarding you with phishing links. Do you need that?

That's it for general advice. Now for some separate tips for streamers.

Sometimes streamers help each other grow their audience by automatically redirecting users to another's channel after a broadcast. This is known as a raid. But if you allow all raids from other users, an ill-minded rival might send a horde of haters your way, whose comments are unlikely to brighten your mood. So go to the Channel settings on the Channel and Videos tab, find the Raids section and either block them entirely or allow them only from friends, teammates, and those you follow.

Incidentally, a word about haters. We already discussed how to block them, but it's much better if they don't get a chance to hurl insults and dodgy links at your subscribers. Proactive is better than reactive.

With that in mind, go to the Channel and Videos tab again, and in the Moderation section find and configure the AutoMod feature. This filters out insults, swear words, and other bad language based on machine learning. There are five levels — from strict to mild. All filtered messages are sent for moderation, and only after approval do they appear in the chat.

In that same Moderation section, you can also block in-chat hyperlinks to protect you and your fans from phishing.

That's all with Twitch, and it's also the end of the course. Congratulations! Now you know how to protect your accounts, how to defeat trolls and scammers, and where and how to buy games safely and as economically as possible. Want to broaden your horizons even further? If you haven't already done so, we recommend taking our general cybersecurity course. Until we meet again!