Barstool’s official Twitch stream has been suspended indefinitely after it was used to make threats against another user on Sunday night. The account was being run at the time by an employee named Devlin D’Zmura. It appears D’Zmura threatened to call in a fake tip to a local SWAT team (an internet harassment practice commonly called “swatting”) about another user.
Deadspin posted a brief explanation of swatting and explained why it is a suspendible offense on many social media platforms. Twitch specifically lists swatting and threats of swatting as suspendible offenses.
For the uninitiated, swatting is a harassment tactic routinely deployed by the very worst people on the internet. The way it works is someone calls 911 and claims to be in a hostage situation or some other emergency, and then gives the dispatcher the address of whoever they are trying to harass. The goal is to get the SWAT team to show up at the victim’s house and scare the shit out of them. Swatting incidents have resulted in all sorts of horrible outcomes, including the death of one man who was shot by police when he answered his door.
The exchange was screen captured and shared with Twitch administrators.
It appears a Twitch user going by the name LikeButta was using Twitch to livestream Barstool’s Rough n’ Rowdy boxing event, which was exclusively available on pay-per-view.
The length of the suspension has not been made public. A Twitch spokesperson told Deadspin that giving the media that information would violate user privacy.
