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Bernie Sanders launches Twitch channel

The senator is one of the first presidential candidates with a presence on the video game streaming service.

Steven Musil Night Editor / News
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. He's been hooked on tech since learning BASIC in the late '70s. When not cleaning up after his daughter and son, Steven can be found pedaling around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before joining CNET in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers.
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Steven Musil
2 min read
US-POLITICS-SANDERS

The Sanders campaign is planning a series of Bernie Live videos on Twitch.

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Bernie Sanders has launched a channel on Twitch , becoming one of the first presidential candidates to have a presence on the video game streaming service. The Sanders channel, which launched Tuesday, comes just before the Vermont senator and Democratic candidate for the White House joins the 2020 election cycle's first Democratic presidential debates, which take place Wednesday and Thursday.

The channel hasn't posted any videos yet, but according to Recode, the Sanders campaign is planning a series of Bernie Live videos on Twitch, Facebook and YouTube, in which the candidate and his staff will discuss news of the day and provide campaign updates. The channel already has 1,720 followers but is following just one account: The Washington Post.

Sanders isn't the first candidate on Twitch; fellow Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang launched a Twitch channel in July 2018. In January, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez showed up on a Twitch stream to raise money for transgender children, as well as talk about how great Nintendo 64 was.

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Twitch, which Amazon purchased for $970 million in 2014, has 15 million daily users watching videos produced by 2.2 million broadcasters.

Sanders has suggested that governments consider breaking up big tech companies including Apple, Amazon and Google. The longtime Vermont senator told Politico earlier this month that he worries "very much about monopolistic tendencies in many sectors of our economy, including high tech."

Sanders' office didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. He'll be on Thursday's Democratic debate on NBC, MSNBC and Telemundo. Sanders will take the stage along with former vice president Joe Biden and others.

Originally published June 25.
Update, June 27: Adds additional background on politicians on Twitch.

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