Twitch Streamer Trolling Is Getting Out Of Hand
There was a time when the extent of Twitch trolling was sending a pizza to a famous streamer covered in anchovies – we all hate anchovies right? But now people are taking it to new and disturbing heights and it’s spiraling out of control. Trolling Twitch.TV streamers isn’t anything new, it was only a short period after the service went live that users began pranking the popular streamers but more recently the internet trolls have begun getting their kicks in disturbing ways.
Early in December a popular World of Warcraft streamer who goes by the name of Swifty, got an unexpected visit from his local police force after a Twitch viewer reported that Swifty was threatening someone with a knife. Thankfully the video evidence available via Twitch was enough to counter those claims but it still must have been a very disturbing situation for someone who was just enjoying sharing time with fans on Twitch. The officers searched the premises and were happy to leave without further action, but it just goes to show how far people are willing to go to get their kicks:
More recently, and more disturbingly, is the case of James ‘PhantomL0rd’ Varga. A hacking group known as DERP targeted the popular streamer as they began taking down each game he attempted to stream. It began with Quake 3 but then League of Legends went offline shortly after he began streaming it. The battle between the hacker and streamer continued as James showed his determination to his record-breaking 140,000 viewers by continuing to stream. However, things escalated shortly after when the hacker sent a false pizza delivery to James’ address just after posting his personal details on Twitch.TV, this was the 6th attempt at trolling the streamer with pizza.
Matters got even worse after the hacker Tweeted his address accompanied by a message stating “The police may be coming”. James then decided to check outside his house and was met with armed response officers that were responding to a false call stating a hostage situation was in progress, his response to the situation is below:
I’m all up for having a laugh but there’s always a line that should not be crossed. Thankfully the situation ended peacefully but it could have quite easily gone in a totally different direction. What if the police mistakenly thought he was armed? There were some many bad possibilities for that situation and streaming a game to people that choose to watch is not deserving of such dangerous circumstances.
So when will it end? Will something deadly have to happen before someone takes responsibility? Leave your thoughts below.
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F*ing with a streamer is an order of magnitude more entertaining than watching them play video games. It will end when watching them play video games is in fact more fun.