How To Report Toxic Members of the MTG Community on Patreon, Youtube, Twitch, Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit.
A large part of our mission here at Hipsters of the Coast is to foster a positive, diverse, and inclusive Magic community. Unfortunately, there are plenty of people who feel that it is okay to be hateful, abusive, harassing, and threatening towards other in the community. These people do not represent our community and are not welcome.
However, we do not want to lead a public witch hunt and encourage otherwise upstanding members of the Magic community to target or harass these toxic people. Instead, we’d like to provide the community with a guide to report abuse and harassment by toxic and hateful individuals on platforms like Patreon, Youtube, Twitch, Twitter, and Facebook.
Jump to: Patreon, YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Facebook, or Reddit.
A quick note: Report the toxic user to ALL of the services listed below on which they break the Terms of Service and include evidence from all services
It’s extremely common for a single person to have accounts on every single one of the services listed below. It is therefore extremely important that you report the toxic user to every single service they have an account on that they use to break the Terms of Service. Many services offer a place for you to leave additional information or comments. Make sure you use it to include all of the evidence of harassment, abuse, and hate speech from every service so that each company knows how widespread the user’s prohibited behavior is.
For example: When reporting a YouTuber to YouTube, make sure you include all links to evidence of harassment, abuse, and hate speech from other services like Twitch, Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit.
Patreon
Platforms that provide financial support to creators do not want to be used to fund hate, harassment, or abuse. Patreon’s community guidelines specifically city bullying, harassment, and threats, as well as hate speech, as conditions for suspension.
So, if someone is using Patreon to fund their attempt to make the Magic community a less welcoming place, here’s how to report them to Patreon.
1. Go to this form. (If that form doesn’t work, here’s a link to Patreon’s help page about reporting creators.)
2. Fill out the form with the creator’s Patreon URL, the guideline violation (likely “Bullying, Harassment, or Hatespeech”), some evidence, and your contact information.
3. Many of the more reprehensible content creators have multiple Patreons, so make sure to repeat this process with their secondary (and tertiary) Patreon accounts.
YouTube
Like Patreon, YouTube allows content creators to make money off of their content and doesn’t want to pay people who use the service to harass or abuse others. YouTube has policies against harassment and cyberbullying, as well as hate speech, that apply to both the people making videos AND those commenting on videos. This means you can report a user’s comments about you or on your videos as harassing, threatening, or hateful.
YouTube only allows you to report harassment if it is directed at you personally, though you can report a creator for threats and hate speech towards others. If someone is using YouTube to attack, harass, and make the Magic community a less welcoming place, here’s how to report them.
1. Go to this form. (You’ll have to sign in to YouTube.)
2. Select the appropriate issue (“Harassment and Cyberbullying” if you are the target, or probably “Violent Threats” or “Hate Speech” if you aren’t the specific target.)
3. Select the form of harassment/hate speech.
4. Provide the URL of the channel you’d like to report.
5. Select up to five videos and/or comments to report.
6. Include any additional notes, like examples of harassment/threats/hate speech on other platforms.
Twitch
As with Patreon and YouTube, Twitch allows creators to monetize their content and doesn’t want to pay people who use the service to harass or abuse others. Twitch has specific rules against harassment, threats, violence, and hate speech.
So if someone is using Twitch as a platform for and to make a living out of harassing and abusing others, or someone in chat is harassing, abusing, or using hate speech, here is how to report them to Twitch.
To report a streamer:
1. Navigate to the streamer’s channel and click the three dot icon in the bottom right below the video player on the channel, highlight, and past broadcast pages.
2. Click the Report option to open the “Report User” form in the page. (Mobile somehow isn’t supported.)
To report a user in chat:
1. Click on their name in chat
2. Click and then the Report option will open the “Report User” form in the page.
3. Select the reason for reporting the user. (Probably “Harassment” or “Hate Speech.”)
4. Provide a description of the harassment/abuse/hate speech as well as any other examples from outside of Twitch.
While Twitter doesn’t allow its users to monetize their content directly, it is one of the platforms most often used to incite large mobs to harass and threaten others. Twitter has specific rules that prohibit abuse and harassment, as well as hate speech.
So, if a toxic user in the Magic community has targeted someone for harassment or hate speech, here’s you can report them and all of their followers to Twitter.
1. Go to this form.
2. Select the appropriate violation. (Likely “Harassment,” “Specific violent threats,” or “Directs hate.”)
3. Provide the offending user’s information and specific tweets.
4. Include a further description of the problem, like examples of harassment/threats/hate speech on other platforms.
5. Provide some contact information.
Like Twitter, Facebook has rules that prohibit bullying and harassment, as well as hate speech.
Unfortunately, Facebook doesn’t have a centralized place to report abuse, harassment, threats, or hate speech. Instead, you must find the offending post or profile, click a down arrow/ellipses for more options, and then choose report. Here is a resource for how to find the report option for all kinds of content on Facebook.
Reddit has rules prohibiting threats, harassment, and bullying, but like Facebook, Reddit doesn’t have a centralized place to report users. Instead, there are two different process: one for reporting individual users and one for reporting posts and comments.
To report a user to Reddit for violating its rules against threats, harassment, or bullying:
1. Go to /r/reddit.com.
2. In the sidebar, find the box that shows all of the moderators and click the link “message the admins.”
3. That link will allow you to send a private message to the team of admins in charge of Reddit.
To report an individual comment or post:
1. Navigate to the offending post/comment.
2. Click the “report” link at the bottom of the post/comment.
3. Select whether it is a threat, harassment, or bullying (or something else if applicable).
4. Select the specific kind of threat/harassment/bullying/etc.
5. Select who was the target of the threat/harassment/bullying/etc.
This article was adapted, with permission, from work done by @AEMarling.