During a recent stream, Quin69 decided to investigate who was receiving the community gifted subscriptions on his channel.
Opening recipient profiles one by one, the New Zealand streamer discovered that the vast majority of gifted subs were landing on accounts that showed zero engagement with his channel. These accounts didn’t follow him. They had no chat history. Many had generic usernames that looked auto-generated.
“These are clankers,” Quin told his viewers, using his community’s term for suspected bot accounts. As he continued checking, the pattern became impossible to ignore. Profile after profile showed the same red flags.
By his count, roughly 98–99% of the community gifts were going to these suspicious accounts. Meanwhile, actual viewers watching and chatting in his stream remained unsubscribed.
The discovery raises serious questions about Twitch’s gift distribution system. When someone gifts subs “to the community,” they expect those subscriptions to reach real viewers who enjoy the content. The gifter spends their money believing they’re supporting both the streamer and fellow fans.
According to Twitch’s own documentation, community gifts should go to viewers currently watching or those who recently watched the channel. The platform does allow gifts to reach non-followers if users haven’t disabled that option in their settings. But the scale of what Quin uncovered suggests something else might be happening.
The streamer’s findings sparked immediate debate about whether these accounts are actively viewbotting his stream or if Twitch’s algorithm is somehow prioritizing inactive accounts over engaged viewers. Some viewers pointed out that legitimate lurkers might look inactive on paper. Others argued that accounts with zero follows and no chat history across the entire platform hardly qualify as “community members.”
For streamers, this presents a troubling scenario. While they still receive revenue from these gifted subs, the actual community building aspect disappears when gifts land on empty accounts. Real viewers miss out on ad-free viewing and emotes while bots collect the perks.
Quin has indicated he plans to investigate further. His initial audit was just a sample of recent gifts, but it painted a concerning picture of where viewer money actually goes when they hit that gift button.
The situation also highlights a broader issue with bot presence on Twitch. Despite the platform’s efforts to combat viewbotting and followbotting through lawsuits and enforcement waves, these accounts apparently still exist in numbers large enough to dominate gift distribution pools.
For viewers who want to ensure their gifts reach real people, the solution right now seems simple but tedious. Instead of using the community gift option, they can manually select specific users to receive subscriptions. It defeats the convenience of bulk gifting, but at least guarantees a human gets the benefit.
