US military allegedly using Amazon’s Twitch to recruit kids

There are a lot of different jobs you can get joining the military. One of them is playing video games to get more kids to join too.

The US military has been accused of using the Amazon-owned streaming platform Twitch to target children as young as 13 for recruitment by luring them in with vague competitions.

The US Army, navy and air force all have their own eSports teams, and they’re now being accused of using those teams to collect details of children as young as 13 – the minimum age users have to be to register a Twitch account.

In one Army-run Twitch stream, a comment informed viewers about an “Xbox Elite Series 2 Controller giveaway!!” before linking to a website where they could enter information to be contacted by an Army recruiter.

The website contained a form allowing users to enter personal details but not a skerrick of information about the fancy Xbox controller it lured visitors in with.

While Army recruiters have guidelines restricting them from contacting children under the age of 16, Twitch has now said it has told them to stop with the misleading competition links amid concerns they are targeting young and impressionable teens.

“Per our Terms of Service, promotions on Twitch must comply with all applicable laws,” a Twitch spokesperson told gaming publication Kotaku.

“This promotion did not comply with our Terms, and we have required them to remove it.”

But that’s not the end of the military’s issues.

A user asked US Army eSports Twitch channel what their favourite war crime was shortly before being banned.

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The armed forces are also under scrutiny for the censorship of comments made in stream chats, while others have questioned its sponsorship of Twitch’s eSports channel Rivals.

Others are protesting the use of video game streaming platforms being used to target impressionable teenagers by reminding them the military isn’t about playing video games all day.

The silence from @Twitch on the latest wave of criticism regarding the military using the site to scam kids into sharing personal info speaks volumes. Imagine ANY other channel doing that. Feel free to manipulate your viewers as much as you like, I guess?

— 爪卂几 (@MANvsGAME) July 16, 2020

Earlier this month video game publication Polygon reported users were trying to do “speedrun” bans from the US Army’s Discord server by asking uncomfortable questions about past military interventions to see who could get banned the quickest.

US activist Jordan Uhl said he was banned after posting a link to a Wikipedia page of US war crimes in the comments on streams.

“Was I undiplomatic? Sure. But if the military is going to use one of the world’s most popular platforms to recruit kids, then it shouldn’t be able to do so without some pushback,” Mr Uhl wrote in an article for The Nation soon after.

just having a good time with the US Army esports twitch stream @JordanUhl pic.twitter.com/qnjyxg1KP0

— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) July 8, 2020

“You little internet keyboard monster, that’s what you are,” one of the hosts of the US Army eSports channel Joshua “Strotnium” David is heard saying in a recording of the stream uploaded elsewhere.

“What’s your favourite US w4r cr1me?” Mr Uhl asked in the stream chat, after an earlier version of the comment excluding the cryptic alpha numeric spelling “wasn’t posted due to conflicts with the channel’s moderation settings”.

He then posted the Wikipedia link and ten seconds later was banned from the chat.

“Have a nice time getting banned my dude,” the host mocks.

Civil rights lawyers told Vice that might have violated the US constitution.

“It looks like what happened was a violation of the First Amendment” which guarantees the right to free speech, according to American Civil Liberties Union staff lawyer Vera Eidelman.

Calling out the government’s war crimes isn’t harassment, it’s speaking truth to power. And banning users who ask important questions isn’t "flexing," it’s unconstitutional. https://t.co/E8N10fM5IR

— ACLU (@ACLU) July 10, 2020

Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute, which famously (and successfully) sued US President Donald Trump after he blocked Twitter users, said the government couldn’t ban people on a whim.

“As established in our case against Trump, if a government agency or branch of the military operates a social media platform or a website, and they allow people generally to post comments then typically that would be considered a public forum,” Knight senior staff lawyer Katie Fallow toldVice.

“If the Army-run Twitch channel is a public forum, then deleting comments or blocking people from commenting based on their viewpoints, such as asking about military crimes, would violate the First Amendment.”

A screengrab from a game in the America's Army franchise.

The US military is no stranger to using video games as a recruitment tactic.

It’s even gone as far as developing and publishing its own video game, America’s Army, which has had several sequels and updates since originally being introduced in 2002.

While the US Army, navy and air force have eSports teams, the US Marines Corps has so far resisted.

“The national marketing brand strategy does not include future plans to establish eSports teams or create branded games,” a USMC response to questions from the Defence Advisory Committee read earlier this year.

“This is due in part to the belief that the brand and issues associated with combat are too serious to be ‘gamified’ in a responsible manner,” the USMC wrote.

It did however note that “while the Marine Corps does not have any eSports teams, local recruiting units have marketing partnerships involving eSports,” which included sponsoring an eSports stadium in Texas and supporting the California Interscholar Federation, which now includes eSports.

A screenshot from a game in the America’s Army franchise.