In wake of Emiru scandal, Dan Clancy admits Twitch’s errors: “We failed”

Twitch community members are still enraged about an incident involving the streamer Emiru, so much so that the platform’s CEO has issued a second statement in an attempt to put out the ongoing fires. Dan Clancy issued a public statement on Twitch’s official X account, in which he admitted that his team “failed” to protect a vulnerable streamer.

Emiru, whose real name is Emily Beth Schunk, was sexually assaulted by a fan at a meet-and-greet held during the first day of TwitchCon, the annual streamer gathering held in San Diego. The assault sent waves through the Twitch community, validating the concerns of female streamers who were hesitant to attend TwitchCon in the first place.

As the CEO of Twitch, Clancy bore the responsibility of a public-facing response to the Emiru situation, and he initially fumbled that opportunity. At TwitchCon, Clancy sat for an interview with internet culture reporter Taylor Lorenz, and viewers construed some of his comments as deflections that shifted some blame onto Emiru and her security team.

“The challenge we face is a challenge in today’s society, it’s not limited to Twitch, it extends throughout our society,” Clancy told Lorenz. “I do think that when you’re livestreaming, in many ways, since you control your community and can ban people, you can make it so that those people you don’t want engaging with you and participating with you aren’t there.”

Clancy’s follow-up statement on X featured a bigger dose of contrition. He admitted that Twitch did not live up to its promise to protect streamers like Emiru. “We failed, both in allowing [the incident] to occur, and in our response following,” Clancy stated

. “We mismanaged our communications about the incident, and that includes the comments I made. I apologize to Emiru for all that took place.”

The statement outlines several measures Twitch is enacting in response to its TwitchCon security lapse. The convention’s meet-and-greet structure will be analyzed in search of potential reforms, and a “comprehensive review” will delve into the TwitchCon team’s approach to safety concerns. The practice of IRL streaming at the gathering will also go under the microscope.

Those efforts are all well and good, but they might be too little, too late. Female streamers of Emiru’s caliber were already considering skipping TwitchCon, and the meet-and-greet incident — when combined with Clancy’s lackluster initial response — could cause big names to forgo the convention in coming years. Between the Adriana Chechik injury of 2022, the Kick-related chaos of 2024, and this year’s Emiru situation, the TwitchCon controversies are really starting to pile up.

Will Clancy’s CEO status also be called into question? The well-traveled operative has tried to be a relatable everyman during his tenure as Twitch’s top exec, but communication breakdowns between the platform’s streamers and its brass have become all too common. If parent company Amazon needs a fall guy to quiet its critics, Clancy could be the one in the hot seat.