The Barstool Sports Twitch channel has been banned from the site after its host threatened to swat a streamer. The threat, made by Barstool employee Devlin D’zmura on Sunday evening, was sent to a viewer who was streaming a PPV Barstool boxing event on their channel. D’zmura described swatting — which involves calling the authorities on an individual and wrongly claiming that they are engaging in illegal activities — as a “cool lil trick us internet folks do,” making a thinly-veiled threat that was promptly called out by other viewers.
“Wow. Threats from barstool?” one viewer wrote in screenshots captured by Deadspin. “Its not a threat. its a response.” the Barstool Twitch channel replied. Later in streamer’s Twitch chat, D’zmura wrote: “we didnt have your [the streamer’s] address at that point,” adding: “now we do.”
Swatting has become an unfortunate trend in recent years, with trolls using it as a method to target Twitch streamers that they dislike. It is also known to have fatal consequences, with the police often being called in for fake bomb threats or other such In 2017, a man was killed by the police as a result of swatting, with the authorities being called to his home over a $2 Call of Duty wager match.
D’zmura tweeted the streamer of the Barstool PPV for his actions, saying that “there was no reason to take it that far whether I knew the severity or not.”
@LikeButtaFPS can’t DM wanted to give an apology somehow your way too. I was obviously over the line and there was no reason to take it that far whether I knew the severity or not. There are simply no excuses. Genuinely sorry for your troubles sir and what I’ve done here. Be well
— Devlin (@devlinbarstool) August 7, 2018
In another tweet, D’zmura wrote: “Apologies to anybody that enjoyed our Twitch. I’m an idiot. I’m a f***ing idiot. ”
Users are now redirected to an error message when trying to access the Barstool Sports Twitch channel. According to Twitch’s community guidelines, threats posted to other users result in the termination of a channel. “Acts and threats of violence will be taken seriously and are considered zero-tolerance violations and all accounts associated with such activities will be indefinitely suspended,” the guideline reads, noting that “threats to hack, DDOS, or SWAT others” will lead to an indefinite suspension.
