While streaming on Twitch offers entertainment to its audiences, streamers must also remain vigilant in keeping their guard up to those who may have malicious intent. Twitch streamers never know what kind of person is on the other side of the computer watching.
The term “swatting” refers to a criminal act that involves a viewer who finds a streamer's location, and in so doing, an emergency call to the police is made with false threats of violence. In theory, armed officers would then arrive at the streamer's location, which creates a scary and also dangerous situation for the victim of this trend. The situation has involved SWAT entering a person's home live on stream with guns drawn, and sometimes results in an arrest. Not only is this traumatizing to the streamer victims, but it is also a waste of emergency resources. This hoax has happened to a number of streamers in recent days, such as IShowSpeed, Keffals, Adin Ross, and now Twitch streamer Nadia can also be added to the recent targets of this violent abuse.
Recently, Nadia spoke out against a sexist viral TikTok that replaced her impressive gameplay in Warzone with washing dishes. She responded by saying that she would never give up on what she loves doing, and that this misogynistic behavior must not get them down. After this, the swatting incident occurred when she was live-streaming on Twitch. While the outcome of these situations can be horrific, thankfully in this circumstance it ended in a light-hearted interaction between the officer, Nadia, and the live chat.
The live stream shows Nadia leaving and then returning later with the SWAT officer. The officer says hello to the stream and then proceeds to lighten the mood by asking the audience to keep the hype train going, he goes on to say: “Her stream does not need to end early just because someone wants to be a jerk.” The officer asks the audience to also give her more subscribers, so she could hit her goal, to which the chat does.
Swatting and doxing are not a good look for the live-streaming community, and hopefully this abuse ends sooner rather than later. The harassment that this streamer and others have had to endure shows that certain members of the community still have a long way to go in their respect for streamers and their livelihoods.