Twitch is a platform for gamers, allowing them to live-stream their activities to their audience. And here, it has the U.S. President as one of its streamers.
With his verified Twitch account (https://www.twitch.tv/donaldtrump/), Trump's first Twitch effort came with his rally in Minneapolis.
What made Trump's move an unexpected one is that, he has long feuded with Amazon, and particularly its founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post.
In 2018, Trump said his administration was looking into antitrust violations by Amazon and other tech companies, and also criticized Amazon for paying “little or no taxes” and has accused The Washington Post as being a “lobbyist” for Amazon.
"I have stated my concerns with Amazon long before the Election,” tweeted Trump in March 2018. “Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state & local governments, use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.), and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business!”
Trump clashed numerous times with Bezos, but by joining Twitch, the President became part of a Bezos-owned community.
Twitch was first Introduced in June 2011 as a spin-off of the general-interest streaming platform, Justin.tv.
The video-streaming site focuses primarily for video game live streaming, including broadcasts of eSports competitions, in addition to music broadcasts, creative content, and others.
When Justin.tv was shut down in August 2014, the service was acquired by Amazon for $970 million. This acquisition led to the introduction of Amazon's subscription service Amazon Prime.
Twitch also promotes broadcasters who often host streams promoting and raising money towards charity. By 2013, the website has hosted events which, in total, raised over $8 million in donations for charitable causes. As of 2017 the website has raised over $75 million in donations for charitable causes.
And here, the official Trump's Twitch page links to the Trump campaign online store and website. Users can also donate on that site.
Earlier, Twitch was in the news spotlight after Amazon said the platform was used by a gunman to livestream massacre in a synagogue in Germany, which killed two people. The video was seen by about 2,200 people before it was pulled from the service.
