Top 10 Twitch streamer doesn’t pay moderators

xQc said in a recent stream that he doesn’t pay his chat moderators, despite being one of the highest-earning content creators on Twitch.

In a recent Call of Duty: Modern Warfare IIstream with fellow Twitch streamer Kai Cenat, Félix “xQc” Lengyel got into a discussion about chat moderators and whether or not they get paid. Kai Cenat, who is the most-subscribed streamer on Twitch, asked xQc if he paid his chat moderators, which prompted a quick “No”. When asked in return, Kai Cenat also said his moderators were unpaid, too.

xQc attempted to justify the choice by saying that he “didn’t want it to become weird”.

“It’s not about doing it for free, I just don’t want it to become weird,” the streamer said to an audience of thousands, “There are some creative reasons. If it became weird, it could become dramatic. I want it to become, like, they want to. They’re passionate.”

The streamer added that because he has a lot of moderators, there’s not a lot of work for each of them, and that he’s concerned about what would happen if the moderators no longer liked moderating his chat, or no longer liked him. Kai Cenat agreed.

Modern Warfare 2 launched with a warm reception, but faced many technical issues as well. Picture: Activision Blizzard

It’s not uncommon for Twitch chat moderators to go unpaid. Moderators are selected by streamers and can only take action, such as removing offensive chat messages, on that single streamer’s channel. Some streamers, however, like Ludwig Ahgren, do pay mods, with Ahgren reportedly paying his mods up to $5000 USD (~$7500 AUD) a day during a 31-day “subathon”, according to Dexerto.

On large channels such as xQc’s, there are often tens of thousands or more viewers interacting with the chat at any given time, posting hundreds of thousands of chat messages an hour. Moderators have to keep a steady eye on the fast-moving chat to make sure nothing objectionable slips through, and multiple moderators are often needed to keep up with the workload.

Twitch is no stranger to controversy, such as earlier this year when a Twitch streamer said to taking money for a gambling addiction. A streamer also broke her back and had to have surgery last month during Twitch’s annual TwitchCon event, after she jumped into a foam pit during an activity set up by the company.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.