A “little trolling on the internet” can have severe consequences. In Canada, a spammer who disrupted the streaming platform Twitch now faces 10 years in prison.
In the vastness of the internet, different laws apply than in the real world. For many, the internet is even a “lawless zone” – no matter what others say. That this is slowly but surely changing and also leading to penalties is something a man from Canada will now experience firsthand.
The user behind the name “Apple” had made a negative impression on the streaming platform Twitch last year – and that is still an understatement. He apparently set out to ruin the day for as many streamers and their viewers as possible and organized several spambots for this purpose.
These programs flooded the chats of over 1000 streamers with more than 150,000 messages, up to 700 messages per minute.
But it’s not just about the sheer spam; it’s also about the content of the messages. These were often insulting, racist, and often linked to pornographic content, sometimes even involving children.
Here are some excerpts from the messages that Apple sent with his bots:
- “Death to all Jews, death to all Jews”
- “Allah hates gays KappaPride”
- “We want to see gameplay and not these big tits”
A Canadian court is now taking on the matter. The person behind “Apple” faces up to 10 years in prison, as reported by the US site Kotaku. Apple has not yet issued a defense.
Twitch employees needed 200 hours to uncover the alleged perpetrator
Twitch only discovered the identity of the accused after obtaining a court order, which put pressure on sites like CloudFlare and Whois Privacy. Apple wanted to conceal his identity with the services of such sites. It is said that employees from Twitch spent 200 hours trying to uncover the identity of the spammer.
This is not the first incident involving Apple that a court has to deal with. Last year, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Apple may not develop or distribute any software that harms Twitch channels and their chats.
What do you think of these penalties? Is it good that the internet is gradually being enforced more strictly and that not everyone can do whatever they want anymore? Or should it be viewed “lightly” because it is “only online”?
