Twitch Streamer Banned After Fake Swatting Stunt

Swatting, the act of getting police and other law enforcement to force their way into someone's home after being told it's the location of hostage situation or other crime, is a despicable act that offenders usually refer to as a "prank." But just as unfunny is staging a fake swatting while livestreaming to an audience of thousands. That's what Trick2G, a popular streamer on the game broadcasting service Twitch, has found out after such an act has gotten his channel closed and himself banned.

The events took place over the weekend, when Trick2G was broadcasting in celebration of reaching 800,000 followers on Twitch. His stream on Saturday ended with the fake swatting stunt, a clip of which can be seen below.

It didn't take long for Twitch to respond, suspending Trick2G's channel and leaving the page blank, stating "The community has closed this channel due to terms of service violations." It's not clear if the ban in permanent at this point, as Twitch has said that they "don't comment on terms of service violations."

Cher Gambino, the manager for Team2G, has written a blog post in response the ban, defending the stunt as an obvious joke and going on about how society now censors anything humorous that may be offensive to someone, never mind the fact that there was nothing really funny about Trick2G's performance, and all it really did was poorly depict an awful act experienced by real victims.

"Trick is an entertainer and that is just how it is, he streams 12 – 14 hours a day and brings constant laughter throughout each and every stream. Trick is known for his MY WAY streams and off the wall attitude. Now, I know some of you are saying...'Cher it is not funny to make a joke about being swatted' There is always someone that thinks only their sense of humour is what matters and if they don't think it is funny then it couldn't possibly be. That is why our country is in the shape it is now, because we fear making light of anything that might be thought of as controversial.

"To take that stream ending serious is absurd, Trick was laughing, the person used was NOT in disguise and was the same person who was on the stream all day yesterday setting up cameras and assisting the stream. The ending was scheduled for 3PM which again if thought process was used in any way, one would know that a swat team would not wait until the end of a stream to engage.

"We don't have to always be politically correct to have a sense of humour and we don't have to hide the fact that we think something is funny simply because someone might not. We will not live in fear of our sense of humour but we will apologise to those who feel theirs is the only sense of humor to have. To those of you who enjoyed the theatrics throughout the 24 hour stream, we thank you. To those of you who were offended by the ending we apologise but together we thank you for supporting the stream and look forward to the 1 million follower 24 hour stream. I am thinking of a whale jumping out of the water to eat him and I will check first to see if this would offend anyone."

SOURCE Kotaku