The US Army Used Misleading Links to Recruit Folks from Twitch

Two years ago, give or take, the US army decided to make its own esports team with the express purpose of recruiting young gamer-types into their ranks. Today, that esports team is still around, but while they don’t have much of a presence in leagues or professional play, they do have their own Twitch channel where they play games, talk about army living, and, as before, try to recruit young men and women into the armed forces.

Now, as of late, the US Army Twitch stream has gotten a boost in popularity ever since people discovered that asking the players about US war crimes is a fun and easy way to troll the players and mods. But with that extra attention and publicity, the US army twitch channel has now gotten some proper heat from Twitch itself now that they’ve discovered that they were using some rather scummy ways to try and trick young kids into joining the army.

I mean, scummier than the already pretty scummy tactic of using a Twitch channel.

See, it was reported that throughout the US Army’s Twitch streams, a chat bot would offer a link to players to click on that would, it claimed, enter them in for the chance to win an Xbox Elite Series 2 controller. Actually clicking on that link, however, would take you straight to the US Army recruitment forums.

Unfortunately, this little trick didn’t net the US Army a ban from Twitch, but Twitch has reportedly asked them to cut it out. Failing to do so, I’m sure, would ultimately lead to a ban: it’s not as if Twitch is afraid of the US government, which it proved earlier this year when it gave the Trump twitch channel a two-week ban for inciting violence and promoting hate.

Either way, now the US army will have to think of a new way to trick people into joining the army.