Deadly swatting increasing on Twitch; alarmed streamers press for change
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Twitch has faced scrutiny for how it helps streamers targeted by extreme hate campaigns. Last year, the livestreaming service started suing users conducting hate raids" that rely on bots to spew a continual barrage of hate speech. These raids, Twitch's lawsuit says, have been targeting black and LGBTQIA+ streamers with racist, homophobic, sexist, and other harassing content." Now, vulnerable users are hoping that Twitch will use its heft to stop some of the deadliest attacks affecting marginalized users on the platform: swatting that has reportedly been increasing since 2015 and that now happens multiple times a week.
These swatting attacks are conducted by anonymous persons making prank calls to police, falsely reporting emergency circumstances (like an armed potential mass shooter or a hostage situation that doesn't exist) in order to get SWAT teams to descend, guns out, on a Twitch streamer's location. The Washington Post reported this week that these swattings appear to be intensifying and can be traumatizing for targeted Twitch streamers. One trans Twitch streamer told the Post that police in London aimed an assault rifle at her face.
Official attempts to prevent swattingBack in 2017, a person who was an unintended target died after a swatting sent officers to the wrong address. The Twitch user who set up that swatting, Casey Viner, was sentenced to 15 months in prison, while the man whom Viner hired to place the prank call, Tyler Barriss, was sentenced to 20 years.