The internet is a wonder of the twentieth century stretching well into the twenty-first. It not only revolutionized communication; it’s the great information equalizer. No longer do you need access to a teacher, a library, or a set of World Book Encyclopedias; now anyone with an internet connection can access Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Brittanica, or Reddit.
But more than accessing information, you can now access people around the globe from the comfort of your own home. Social media platforms like Facebook, Bluesky, Instagram, or the aforementioned Reddit, all provide different ways to share aspects of your life with the greater world—from baby pictures on Facebook, to political topics on Bluesky, to fashion and gardening on Instagram, to professional experiences on Reddit.
Platforms like Twitch are a way to share gaming discoveries and successes, while YouTube can be a way to highlight skills or stunts. The gatekeepers of old are gone. Now all you need is an internet connection and a connected device and you can be your own content creator and publisher.
One advantage of social media is the lasting connections and friendships made with people you’d never meet in real life, simply due to geography, as Krista Evans puts it in Shadow Play:
Whether it’s a fellow gamer who sees the world through the same lens as you, from five hundred miles away, a moms’ group that forms when everyone has similar due dates and is still together decades later, or people who meet in a forum because they love a certain fandom and then find they have much more in common…those are true friendships.
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But the comfort of your own home often also implies an anonymity that can come with a dark side, as is typical of human nature. People have used this anonymity to threaten, harass, and even to kill. Some have even used livestreaming as a way to identify the real-life location of streamers with the intent to do them harm.
Now all you need is an internet connection and a connected device and you can be your own content creator and publisher.*
Northern Ireland’s Stephen McCullagh attempted to create an alibi for the time period in which he murdered his fifteen-weeks pregnant girlfriend by pre-recording what he later stated was a live Grand Theft Auto gaming stream on YouTube. He told his followers he would not be able to interact with them during the stream due to a technical issue at his end, camouflaging his absence.
This gave him a six-hour window in which to travel to the home of Natalie McNally, stab her to death, and return home, all while purportedly being live online.
However, after he was caught on a bus’s CCTV when he claimed to be at home livestreaming, forensic cyber analysts determined his game stream had been pre-recorded. McCullagh was charged with McNally’s murder and plans to plead not guilty in the upcoming trial.
With nearly six million followers between them, Rachell Marie Hofstetter, Brittany Lynn Watts, and Emily Beth Schunk, better known as Valkyrae, Cinna, and Emiru, were taking part in a live Twitch marathon celebrating women streamers earlier this year in Pacific Park in Santa Monica. They’d just disembarked one of the amusement park rides when a man identifying himself as Russel approached them, asking Emiru for her phone number.
When she refused and the women attempted to walk away, Russel followed, eventually chasing them and threatening, “I’ll kill you right now.” Fortunately, the women were assisted to safety by Santa Monica Police officers; however, law enforcement was unable to find the suspect.
Twitch streamer QuarterJade has experienced the darker side of streaming in multiple ways. When she was relatively new to Twitch, a stalker sent her a screenshot of her own house with a threatening message. She has also been harassed in her own chat with sexual assault and death threats. While she considered quitting, she has resolved to continue streaming for her loyal followers.
Swatting is another real-life hazard of streaming. This occurs when a false claim of a deadly situation is reported to law enforcement, resulting in the SWAT team being sent in. When several players of Call of Duty: WWII argued about the death of a character, a threat was made and a false address given, resulting in a SWAT team responding to an old address of one of the gamers, only to kill innocent 28-year-old Andrew Finch on his own front porch.
Another Twitch streamer had SWAT officers come to his home as he livestreamed making tacos because it had been reported he had shot and killed his family. Fortunately, the streamer realized quickly what was happening and surrendered to officers on his livestream, deescalating the crisis before he or his dogs were shot and killed.
Numerous authors have seen the inherent threat (and, sometimes, advantages) associated with social media platforms. In Sydney Leigh’s Instagoner, Instagram influencer Emily Dalle uses her followers to help her solve her nemesis’s hit-and-run murder.
John Sanford’s Masked Prey delves into the world of blogging when U.S. Marshall Lucas Davenport joins forces with the FBI to find out who is posting pictures of U.S. Senators’ children on the dark web. Unfollow Me by Charlotte Duckworth follows a YouTube mommy vlogger who disappears, leaving her husband and viewers to follow her trail through a web of lies and deception.
Shadow Play highlights just one example of how a livestream used for good can be hijacked by a bad actor. Twitch’s platform is primarily used for gaming, but it has expanded to include esports, the creative arts, music, and discussion.
Krista Evans is not a gamer, as opposed to her best friend, Hailey Swanson. Krista is a physiotherapist by trade, but loves to chat with her clients, offering life advice that often strikes the right note. Hailey convinces Krista she could use her skills to help a larger community on Twitch, and the livestreaming channel A Word from the Wise is born.
Hailey is the tech brains, while Krista is the communicator, and, before long, they have built a positive, helpful community. They stream twice a week, not only offering advice themselves, but the community also lends a hand, lifting each other up, and offering different world views and experiences.
It’s the hive mind at its best. Until Chase547 enters the chat and highjacks the channel they love.
Shadow Play highlights just one example of how a livestream used for good can be hijacked by a bad actor.Twitch provides multiple ways for content creators to protect themselves on the platform—timeouts, emote-only chats, slow-mode chat, verified accounts only, paid subscribers only, Shield Mode to allow for increased Twitch security, and even the nuclear option, banning. These are real tools content creators have at their disposal care of the Twitch Safety Center, created to protect viewers, streamers, and channels.
But what do you do when each escalating level of safety is circumvented? This is where Krista and Hailey find themselves as Chase547 comes to them for advice with a woman he admires, but then becomes infuriated when they stand for her when she’s not interested in his advances. When their interaction with Chase547 hits much closer to home, closer to reality than a virtual interaction, it truly feels like the call is coming from inside the house.
Social media can be either a blessing or a curse—it can be the connection that sustains the lonely, or can provide the means for a stalker to find and follow his prey. It enough to make one wonder with each log on—what will today’s interaction bring?
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