A YouTuber known as Keemstar has received massive backlash for leading an internet witch-hunt, after falsely identifying an innocent 62-year-old Twitch streamer as a paedophile.
After latching onto a story about a paedophile called John Philips – who was arrested for having sex with a minor he met playing internet game Runescape – Keemstar’s ‘team’ took it upon themselves to do literally zero fucking research before finding a kindly old Twitch streamer called Tony – who goes by the handle of rsgloryandgold – and accusing him of being John Philips in a video.
This prompted a lot of Keemstar’s followers to swamp the 62-year-old’s stream with hate-filled rants, which left him confused and extremely upset.
After it became apparent that Tony is not, and has no affiliation with, John Philips the internet has reacted spectacularly by calling out Keemstar for his utter douchebaggery, and by flooding Twitch with messages of love and goodwill.
Since discovering his poorly researched mistake, Keemstar has published a video that says how much he regrets the accusation. He’s apparently even offered money to Tony to make up for the mistake, who has turned him down, saying he wants nothing more than to move on with his life and to keep streaming Runescape.
While I was writing this article, the rsgloryandgold Twitch stream had over 11k viewers – YouTube superstar TotalBiscuit even popped in to say hello – and Tony was telling people not to send hate mail to Keemstar, as he didn’t believe in it.
What an absolute hero. You’ve won the internet today, Tony.
Mark is the Gaming Editor for UNILAD. Having grown up a gaming addict, he’s been deeply entrenched in culture and spends time away from work playing as much as possible. Mark studied music at University and found a love for journalism through going to local gigs and writing about them for local and national publications.