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18 Emmett Shear is the founder and CEO of Twitch (www.twitch.tv), the world’s leading video
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platform and community for gamers. Mr. Shear is also the co-founder of Justin.tv and a part-time
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partner at venture capital firm Y Combinator where he advises fledgling startups on product and
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strategy. Mr. Shear is embedded in a lot of controversy right now for ignoring verifiable reports
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23 of Twitch streamers violating, not only Twitch’s Terms of Service, but also applicable California
24 State Laws in regards to animal abuse by Alinity Divine, along with racial rantings and Pornhub
25 sharing by popular streamer Pokimane, all this occurring while Mr. Shear continues to “laugh”
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off sexual abuses occurring on his Twitch platform by higher-up staff such as Hassan Bokhari,
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where it has been reported Mr. Shear was, “…asked in an All Hands meeting about partners
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2 platform, can’t really comment,’ & moved on.” As per an article on VG247 investigating sexual
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abuses occurring at Twitch’s Head Offices - https://www.vg247.com/2020/06/22/twitch-ceo-
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abuse-partners/
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For these reasons, I humbly ask the court to grant the subpoena of Twitch CEO Emmett
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7 Shear to provide the requested documents listed in the subpoena in regards to all matters listed
8 above and to appear at all Court hearings that are to occur in person in order to answer
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questions by the Plaintiff.
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2. Twitch’s Responsibility/Disintegration of Twitch’s Competitor: MIXER
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12 During the first quarter of this year, Twitch broke 3 billion total hours watched for the first
13 time. The momentum has continued from April through June as it surpassed 5 billion total hours
14 watched for a single three-month span. A new report from Streamlabs showcases just how
15 popular Twitch has gotten during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic as it previously
16 averaged 2.7 billion hours watched last year. None of its competitors came close to matching its
17 viewership as YouTube Gaming hit 1.5 billion hours and Facebook Gaming maxed out at 822
18 million, which is triple the amount it had last year. Microsoft's now-defunct Mixer service came
19 in fourth with only 106 million hours watched during the second quarter. Prominent streamers
20 such as Shroud and Ninja, who reportedly made over $20 million to move to Mixer, could be
21 switching back to Twitch and help boost it further. Twitch led in other key analytics, as well.
22 Nearly 10 million unique channels streamed 192 million hours of content, which is more than
23 double the previous quarter. – As per Gamespot.
24 Because of these numbers, Twitch has a bigger responsibility to protect teens under the
25 age of 17 and children under the age of 13 from such sexually suggested material as displayed in
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the original complaint. However, with Mixer now being defunct, Twitch is acquiring most of
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Mixer’s streamers as many will choose not to go to Facebook Gaming, which will only result in
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more sexually suggestive women infiltrating the Twitch platform with the sole purpose of
COMPLAINT AND REQUEST FOR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, AND
PLAINTIFF’S REQUEST FOR PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS (SET ONE)
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1 sexually seducing young minds and the mentally unstable, which Twitch will allow for the single
2 reason of improving profits and their bottom line, at the expense of the viewer.
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4 3. Ongoing Sexual Misconduct by Twitch Staff:
5 Twitch’s director of partnerships, Hassan Bokhari, is among the more than 130 people in
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the streaming and gaming industries who have been accused by name of sexual misconduct this
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month. Vio, a Twitch partner creator with 46K followers, tweeted allegations that Bokhari had
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used his position at the company to obtain her contact information, pressured her into meeting
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10 him in person, coerced her into sending him nude images and then shared them without her
17 than I can count, but each time Hassan took no as ‘convince me.’” Vio also alleges Hassan was
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aware that Luminosity, a Twitch partner with 156K followers who’s known for streaming first-
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person shooter Destiny, was soliciting nudes from fans, and apparently did not act on that
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knowledge. Luminosity issued an apology this week to his former girlfriend RionQT (an Apex
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22 Legends streamer with 5.6K followers) after she publicly accused him of using his “popularity
23 and community to slide into girls (sic) direct messages to get nudes.” She was one of the people
24 who sent him naked images, she said. As per a report via TubeFilter –
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https://www.tubefilter.com/2020/06/26/twitch-hassan-bokhari-alleged-abuse-partners/
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Guy Beahm, better known as Dr. Disrespect, was one of the biggest names in streaming up
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until last week, leveraging an over-the-top, aggressive fictional persona to widespread success,
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earning him millions of followers on the site, an exclusivity deal, and even book and TV
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deals. That’s all in question now, because last week his channel disappeared with little
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indication why. All we got was a standard statement from Twitch about the code of conduct, and
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a statement with no specifics from Disrespect himself:
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15 Twitch, the Amazon-owned market leader when it comes to video game streaming. After a
16 wave of allegations of sexual misconduct, the service has begun banning even some of its most
17 prominent streamers, answering past accusations that the company did not apply its code of
18 conduct equally across large and small streamers. Arguably its biggest move was to suspend the
19 account belonging to President Donald Trump’s campaign, banned for hateful conduct—not the
20 largest account on the site by any means, but arguably the highest-profile in a larger sense. One
21 of the largest bans, however, remains a relative mystery. And so, for the past few weeks, the
22 gaming and streaming community have been asking themselves one big, unanswered question:
23 why was Dr. Disrespect banned from Twitch? Because of this, the Plaintiff is humbly requesting
24 documents as pertaining to why Dr. Disrespect was permanently banned from Twitch in order to
25 deem if it was for a fair, valid, and legally binding reason. But if not, Plaintiff demands that
26 Twitch hand over all documents via the Custodian of Records at Twitch on reasons as to why Dr.
27 Disrespect was permanently banned for the public to know via the Freedom of Information Act.
28 Twitch continues to distort the truth as can be seen in their latest statement regarding his
COMPLAINT AND REQUEST FOR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, AND
PLAINTIFF’S REQUEST FOR PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS (SET ONE)
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1 permanent ban, supposedly due to violations of Twitch’s TOS, but as many are reporting the real
2 reason having to due with freeing up money to buy bigger streamers known as Ninja and Shroud.
3 Twitch stated, "As is our process, we take appropriate action when we have evidence that a
4 streamer has acted in violation of our Community Guidelines or Terms of Service. These apply
5 to all streamers regardless of status or prominence in the community.” Beyond that, there’s little
6 indication of what’s going on. Some other brands also appear to have scrubbed Disrespect from
7 their licensed offerings, but he still remains elsewhere. Criminal charges are a possibility, but
8 ESPN did not find any warrants, arrests or charges in Los Angeles or San Diego counties. The
9 ban is widely rumored to be permanent (for violating TOS), but even that is still unconfirmed.
10 Because of this, Twitch is engaging in Unfair Business Practices both on the local and
11 Californian state level and as is further defined:
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“Unfair competition and deceptive business practices hurt small businesses and
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consumers by causing economic loss and damaging our ability to shop and conduct
14 basic transactions with an assurance of quality and basic fairness. Fortunately,
California has laws in place to protect consumers and businesses from such
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misleading tactics. The attorneys at Rounds & Sutter know these laws and fight to
16 protect the rights of consumers and small businesses from unlawful activity
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throughout Southern California.
28 by having publicly facing documents as seen here in regards to the Twitch CEO in response to a
COMPLAINT AND REQUEST FOR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, AND
PLAINTIFF’S REQUEST FOR PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS (SET ONE)
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1 whole terrible week of news items, but continuing to put out tweets, personal emails, and email
2 chains that talk about what he is doing to keep such negative/sexual content off of their service
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and bad actors from enabling things on their service. He continues to use this as marketing and
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therefore, to this extent, he and Twitch have legally failed and caused deliberate, willful, and
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gross negligence – therefore violating applicable California Unfair Business Statutes. Therefore,
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7 Twitch is being very deceptive and continues to commit false advertising and unfair business
8 practices.
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Twitch continues to go out with this marketing and utterly fails by not legally abiding to
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the pertinent part(s) of their own Terms of Service as is listed below:
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“Nudity, Pornography, and Other Sexual Content”
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“We restrict content that involves nudity or is sexual in nature, and are committed to
13 ensuring that Twitch is not used for sexual exploitation or violence. To provide more clarity
around these policies and how we review reports of such content or activity, we’ve provided
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additional details to complement our Community Guidelines in the sections below.
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While we understand that some nudity or sexual content might be intended for educational,
16 scientific, artistic, newsworthy, or academic purposes, we restrict this content due to the
diversity in age and cultural backgrounds of our global community. We may, in limited
17 educational and artistic contexts, make pre-approved exceptions to these policies. Going
forward, Twitch will continue working on ways to safely support nudity and sexual content in
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these particular contexts.
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Sexual Violence and Exploitation
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Sexually Explicit Content
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Sexually Suggestive Content
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Nudity and Attire
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Nudity and Sexual Content in Embedded Media and Games
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Additional Restrictions
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Reporting Sexual Content Violations
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Sexual Violence and Exploitation
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Sexual violence and exploitation are strictly prohibited and may be reported to law enforcement.
28 Examples include, but are not limited to:
8 Any nudity, sexual content, sexual violence, or sexual exploitation that involves minors,
appears to involve minors, or depictions of minors, or content that encourages or
9 promotes pedophilia”
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6. Twitch illegally promotes Porn Site OnlyFans.Com
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OnlyFans is a content subscription service based in London. Content creators can earn
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money from users who subscribe to their content—as the "fans". It is popular in the adult
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27 entertainment industry, but also hosts content creators from other genres, including such popular
28 Twitch streamers such as Amouranth and Pink_Sparkles among others, i.e. physical
2 receive funding directly from their fans on a monthly basis as well as on tips and the pay-per-
3 view (PPV) feature. For a more a detailed analysis on how OnlyFans.com operates, here is an in-
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depth article from The New York Times:
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“Every day, hundreds of men pay Dannii Harwood to enact their sexual fantasies and boost
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their self-esteem. Sometimes her clothes come off. Sometimes she dresses up as a nurse or a
7 dominatrix. If a guy is a regular customer, she likely knows his birthday, the names of his
children and his pets — even when to call after a surgical procedure. He may pay her to help
8 him achieve an orgasm, though she is not a prostitute. He may purchase erotic videos from her,
though she is not a porn star. Ms. Harwood is one of the top earners on OnlyFans, where
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subscribers — mostly male; straight, gay and beyond — pay models and social media
10 influencers a fee, generally $5 to $20 a month, to view a feed of imagery too racy for Instagram.
With that access, subscribers can also direct message and “tip” to get pictures or videos created
11 on demand, according to their sexual tastes. Models who join the site often presume that their
subscribers will increase in number if they post more often and make the content more explicit.
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The “more often” part is true. The “more explicit” part is not. At a time when anyone with a
13 smartphone or small studio can become his or her own pornographer, and content is often free,
the hottest site in the adult entertainment industry is dominated by providers who show fewer sex
14 acts and charge increasing fees depending on how creative the requests get. That’s the first
paradox at the center of the OnlyFans phenomenon.
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16 Jem Wolfie and Matthew Camp, Businesspeople
The most popular OnlyFans personality is Jem Wolfie, of Perth, Australia. She can’t help but
17 laugh when people call her a “fitness model.” As she noted in an interview, “70 percent of my
18 fans are men.” So the bulk of them aren’t looking for exercise tips, although she may provide
them, for an added fee (along with healthy recipes — she used to be a chef).According to
19 OnlyFans, she has 10,000 subscribers who pay $10 a month for access to a feed in which she
shows off her Kardashianesque proportions, squatting in really tight leggings and squeezing her
20 breasts together, strategically covering her nipples. “I’m a thick girl,” she said matter-of-factly. It
21 doesn’t go much further than that:
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How (Twitch and..) the Internet Destabilized Pornography
27 From the late 1990s to the early 2000s, dreamers in the porn industry, centered in the San
Fernando Valley of California, openly described their multi-million-dollar futures in the
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business. There was actually a history of this happening, at least for a small number of models
COMPLAINT AND REQUEST FOR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, AND
PLAINTIFF’S REQUEST FOR PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS (SET ONE)
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1 signed to lucrative long-term contracts with studios like Vivid and Wicked They could make
north of $5,000 a scene and shoot a couple of those each week, according to Brian Gross, a
2 well-known industry publicist. That income could be supplemented with five-figure sums doing
nightclub appearances around the country on the weekends, he said. Jenna Jameson — the Julia
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Roberts of straight porn — even parlayed her notoriety into a memoir released by
4 HarperCollins, “How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale,” which was a New
York Times best seller. The title turned out to be eerily prescient. As its publisher, Judith Regan,
5 pointed out: “Porn went the way of all media.” It turns out, everyone could do it. Except that
because porn was an industry of people already living on the margins of society, the effects for
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the performers were in many ways worse. The primary culprits were so-called tube sites:
7 YouTube-like platforms that aggregated stolen pornographic content, disseminated it for free
and sucked up revenue from banner and video ads:
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17 Jem WolfieCredit...Lauren Fleishman for The New York Times
Since porn studios did not have the capital or political connections to sue their most
18 threatening adversaries out of business (as the record industry did), rates for scene work
dropped. Fewer scenes were shot overall. Eventually, the studios began selling themselves to the
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tube sites at fire-sale prices.It was as if the entire music business had been subsumed by Napster.
20 By 2015, a handful of companies were able to exert monopolistic control over the industry.
MindGeek is the biggest player of all. The crown jewel of its empire is Pornhub (perhaps the
21 most popular tube site in the world), which is supplied with content from numerous in-house
production companies of the straight (Brazzers.com, Reality Kings) and gay varieties
22 (SeanCody, Men.com).MindGeek knows all about porn habits by doing comprehensive data
23 analysis. It has shown less of an affinity for the product or the people who appear in it. The
MindGeek website makes no reference to the fact that the overwhelming majority of its
24 customers are consumers of hard-core pornography. The technocrats who built the company got
rich. Many of the performers who helped enable their success became prostitutes, offering their
25 services on websites like RentMen.com and The Erotic Review when scene work ceased to be a
26 viable way to make a living. It’s a fitting but unfortunate parable in an era of rampant economic
inequality.
27 “If you have a known name, it’s much easier to market your services,” said Dirk Caber,
a porn star who has filmed close to 40 scenes for MindGeek’s most popular gay site, Men.com,
28 since 2013. Most of his income comes from his work as an escort, because this scene work pays
COMPLAINT AND REQUEST FOR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, AND
PLAINTIFF’S REQUEST FOR PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS (SET ONE)
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1 so little. “The whole industry did a 180,” Mr. Gross said. “When I started, there were actually
websites that would out famous porn stars if they escorted, because it was shocking, for lack of a
2 better word. Now, all talent is looked at as if they are escorts, and those who aren’t have to come
out and say so.”
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4 Your ‘Online Girlfriend’
One alternative to escorting is webcamming. In England, there are even TV stations, like
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Playboy and Babestation, on which models talk live with thousands of customers and earn
6 several hundred dollars a day. That’s what Ms. Harwood did before OnlyFans came along. She
grew up in Wales, with a mother who stocked supermarket shelves and a father who was a
7 factory worker. It was a “typical working-class” household, she said recently, while on a
vacation in New York that included a trip to the 9/11 memorial and the taking of many hotel
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room selfies. As a little girl, Ms. Harwood was a relentless attention seeker, the sort who
9 appeared in school plays, competed in beauty pageants and studied dance. She also had
reservoirs of empathy that would serve her well later in life. She could spot pain in others and
10 find ways to make them feel better. She also was capable of identifying her limitations and
finding ways to chart new paths for herself.“
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I was raised well,” she said. She studied dance at Laine Theatre Arts, a prestigious
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drama and dance college near London. Then, “I went to audition after audition,” she said.
13 “Eventually, I realized I wasn’t good enough. And it was quite hard to accept at first.” Around
2005, Ms. Harwood posed topless on Page 3 of The Daily Sport, a second-tier British newspaper
14 that she said “was popular with day laborers and construction workers.” This apparently
included the guys her father worked with. One morning, he went into work and saw the picture of
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his daughter plastered to his locker. On her face, his colleagues had drawn his mustache and
16 glasses. That’s how he found out she was modeling nude. That’s why he warned her about being
disowned. Ms. Harwood felt terrible. Although she likes taking off her clothes for other people,
17 she seems driven less by the desire to transgress than the desire to please. If she were
reincarnated as a Disney character, she’d be Jessica Rabbit, not Miss Piggy. But it wasn’t like
18 her father had the money to support her. His warning was sort of an empty threat. So she kept
19 going, with appearances in Playboy and British so-called laddie magazines:
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21 “Refreshing to know that investigative journalism isn’t dead,” he said. Still, the best he
could offer were written responses to questions for Mr. Stokely, the company’s chief executive.
22 The answers were maddeningly vague, but Mr. Stokely did say that he works at Fenix with his
father, Guy Stokely, who, before becoming its chairman, was an investment banker with
23 Barclays, the storied British bank. Mr. Stokely also confirmed that one of Fenix’s directors is
24 Leo Radvinsky, a 2003 Northwestern University graduate who went on to start MyFreeCams
(one of the industry’s largest chat sites) and who has been a defendant in three lawsuits related
25 to phishing attempts and patent infringement. (Mr. Blythe said he could not comment on the
status of those lawsuits because they “do not pertain to OnlyFans.”) Mr. Stokely is eager to take
26 OnlyFans out of the pornography niche and make it a platform for all sorts of influencers and
27 audiences. One hurdle is that there is no iPhone app. The platform as it exists now likely runs
afoul of Apple’s restrictions on “overtly sexual or pornographic material.” And even if Apple
28 did allow an OnlyFans app, the fees — 30 percent — would certainly be a problem, Mr. Stokely
COMPLAINT AND REQUEST FOR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, AND
PLAINTIFF’S REQUEST FOR PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS (SET ONE)
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1 said. He would have to pass along those expenses to performers. Technical problems on
OnlyFans also threaten its longevity and help explain why synonymous sites, such as JustFor.
2 Fans, have managed to siphon off considerable numbers of performers and revenue. Still,
Chanel Santini, a 21-year-old performer who has been with OnlyFans for more than a year and
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earns at least $8,000 a month in subscription revenue, can’t muster serious complaints. Not
4 when she experienced the alternative. She grew up in Albuquerque with a single mother who was
a hairdresser. Ms. Santini came out as transgender when she was a teenager. That got her
5 thrown out of the house. She never finished high school. In 2015, Ms. Santini moved to Las
Vegas and took a job as a clerk at Hollister, the clothing chain. Even in a city with a fairly low
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cost of living, it wasn’t enough. So she started doing porn, filming scenes that paid as little as
7 $400, which then led to escorting. She worked for a madam who stole her money, she said, and
threatened her with violence.
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With popular feeds on Instagram and Twitter, Ms. Santini’s name got bigger. OnlyFans
9 started and she signed up. A couple of weeks ago, she burst into tears over the phone while
recalling her first pornographic shoot. There, a director had told her that the only way to make a
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living in porn was to also be a prostitute. “He said that straight to my face,” she said. “Now, I
11 just want to run into him again, so I can say, ‘Well, here I am. I’m pulling in tens of thousands of
dollars every month just posting content online. I don’t have to escort anymore. I don’t have to
12 do that. Guess you were wrong!’”
13 In conclusion, since many popular female streamers such as Amouranth and Pink_Sparkles
14 continue to advertise their OnlyFans on Twitch; Twitch is therefore is engaging in illegal
15 behaviour by promoting Porn via their Platform/Website.
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7. Supplemental Facts in regards to Sexually Suggestive Material on Twitch:
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18 As can be viewed and easily proved of the Plaintiff’s continuing deterioration due to
19 Twitch, the plaintiff is now following 857 female streamers as can be verified by going to
24 Alinity is a Twitch live streamer. Her name is derived from her most frequently played
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and broadcasted game, World of Warcraft. She has amassed more than 1.1 million
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followers to her Twitch live streaming channel. Alinity has come under fire from fans
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2 most of the time playing video games and sharing it online. Thighranosaurus Rex is
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the full name of the streamer. The streamer is in her early thirties but she looks
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younger and most of her audience says that. However, InvaderVie takes advantage of
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6 sexually addictive viewers by demanding they donate money, subscribe to her, or pay
7 bits. And if they didn’t, (they) were idiots for not managing their money well. Twitch
8 excused her bad behaviour and did nothing despite it violating Twitch’s TOS, since
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it’s illegal to coerce children into providing money or using their parents’ credit cards
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to donate, subscribe, or cheer bits without previous prior parental consent; especially
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12 done through sexual coercion as InvaderVie committed on a Twitch Livestream.
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23 4) CinCinBear is best known as a Twitch Star. She is known for her live streaming of
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the World of Warcraft and Minecraft game franchises on her eponymous channel.
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She and fellow Twitch star BarcodeStreams are both known for their Minecraft
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27 uploads to their respective channels. She began streaming on June 8, 2014. Prior to
28 that, she had experimented with streaming from her laptop, which could not handle
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She promoted her dirty and used panties in which she publicly admits to “cumming”
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in order to sell it on the dark market to anyone sadly desperate enough to buy said
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20 underwear. Of which, unfortunately, the plaintiff did not have the funds to acquire them
21 himself. This is all bad behaviour on Twitch’s part and in violation of TOS for not
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preventing said events from occurring, or in the very least, punishing CinCinBear and
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other bad actors from promoting highly sexualized products via the Twitch Platform or
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through OnlyFans.com for teens and children to purchase. Proof of said event can be
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26 found here - https://thothub.tv/2019/11/14/cincinbear-onlyfans-used-panties/
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Twitch Streamer – Nalopia
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9. Twitch’s Incompetent Advisory Council
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Twitch created an Advisory Council in order to help them address such issues,
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however, with gross and even criminal negligence, have failed to do so. This official
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28 advisory council had this official mission statement of which they utterly fail at:
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However, as can be seen in the evidence listed above, they obviously are not
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adhering to their job or even beginning to implement safety features to address said
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issues.
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2 Member’s believes he/she is a…deer. This seems to be a joke, but as can be seen here, it
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surely is not. This is proof of more gross-negligence occurring at Twitch and their
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misleading and their blatant false advertising that they are handling such ” issues and bad
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actors” via their official marketing statements through tweets and email chains
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7 throughout the company and abroad in the media. The Advisory Member known as