The Twitch streamer Clara “Keffals” Sorrenti (28) advocates for the rights of transgender people. For this, she is regularly targeted. About a month ago, she was swatted in her home in Canada and arrested. She then launched a campaign to take down the forum “Kiwi Farms”. Now she celebrates the victory.
This is Keffals:
- The Twitch streamer Keffals is repeatedly the target of online attacks as an activist for the rights of transgender people.
- The 28-year-old is outspoken and confronts such attacks head-on. Her popularity and influence are growing: in 2021, Keffals averaged 100 viewers on Twitch, but over the last 30 days, she averaged 1,500. On Twitter, Keffals now has 146,000 followers.
- We reported on Keffals on MeinMMO when streamer Destiny received a permanent ban from Twitch.
Twitch advocates for diversity, a topic that has potential for conflict:
Streamer interrogated at home by police due to fake email
This is the latest conflict:
About a month ago, the Twitch streamer became the target of a hate campaign. The site Polygon reported that Keffals was “swatted” and arrested at her home in London, Ontario, on August 5 (via polygon). Keffals says she woke up and saw the barrel of a gun.
Someone had sent a false email and threatened people in Keffals’ name. The email said that Keffals had killed her mother and planned to go to the town hall with an illegal firearm to injure people.
It is believed that this campaign originated in the notorious “Kiwi Farms” forum: Kiwi Farms is considered a “hate forum”.
This is how the Twitch streamer took revenge: Keffals was able to put so much pressure on her community that the service provider CloudFlare withdrew its support for the forum (via cloudflare), and it now looks like the forum must shut down and remain permanently offline.
Keffals is celebrating this success with her community on Twitter.
Germany praised for “tough approach” against cyberbullying
This is interesting from a German perspective: On September 6, Keffals shared 4 messages from a German woman whom she identified as one of the users of “Kiwi Farms” (via twitter).
The woman shares an alleged official letter from the public prosecutor’s office in Nuremberg-Fürth. According to the document dated August 21, 2022, an investigative procedure was initiated against her.
The allegations are:
- Cyberbullying
- Cyberstalking
- Hacking
- Threat
- Hate speech
- Persecution of minorities
Keffals also shares chat logs: The woman was asked if she was being prosecuted for cyberbullying in the case of the German YouTuber “Drachenlord”. However, she replied “No, for Keffals.”
Berlin law professor considers document to be fake
What is the problem with this post? The post shared by Keffals is seen by Twitter users as evidence of the strictness of the German justice system and that Germany is taking a tough stance against cyberbullying – in contrast to the lax laws elsewhere.
However, this seems to be an interpretation from a German perspective that is difficult for us to understand. Because from Germany, there have repeatedly been cases where action was not taken against cyberbullying:
- It has been widely discussed that Green politician Renate Künast had to endure severe insults online because even these insults still fell under freedom of expression. Künast had to fight for her rights in the Federal Constitutional Court.
- A major investigation by ZDF Magazin Royale in May 2022 revealed that the German police had failed in many cases in pursuing crimes on the internet (via youtube).
This is how law professor Dr. Kirstin Drenkhahn from Berlin also exposes the letter as likely fake: The wording did not match, and the formalities were also incorrect.
But even the professor does not understand why someone would want to forge such a letter.
The hate and cyberbullying of the YouTuber “Drachenlord” is a very specific and scary German internet phenomenon:
