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A lot of scrutiny has been placed on how Twitch handles users' reports after being 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, “targeting black and LGBTQIA+ streamers with racist, homophobic, sexist, and other harassing content.” Now, vulnerable users are hoping that Twitch will use its industry heft to help effect more change and stop some of the deadliest attacks affecting marginalized users on the platform: swatting that has reportedly been increasing since 2015 and 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 hostage situation that doesn’t exist) in order to get SWAT teams to descend, with guns out, on a Twitch streamer’s location. The Washington Post reported this week that these swattings are seemingly intensifying and traumatizing for any Twitch streamers targeted, who are aware that swattings can be deadly. One trans Twitch streamer told the Post that police in London aimed an assault rifle at her face .

Official attempts to prevent swatting

Back in 2017, a Twitch user died after a swatting. The Twitch user who set up the 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 .