Veteran IRL streamer Paul ‘Ice Poseidon’ Denino has detailed his version of the dramatic events which led to him being permanently banned from Twitch. Denino was famously suspended indefinitely from the platform when he was removed from an airplane by police after being falsely accused of having a bomb.
Ice Poseidon had built his career as one of the most popular, and of the first, IRL streamers. With a formidable fanbase around him, it looked like there was no end to Denino’s Twitch domination.
However, it all came crashing down after he was swatted while on an airplane due to a hoax bomb threat. After the incident made headlines across the US, he was permanently banned from Twitch, which caused a fiery row among the streaming community.
Now, Denino has shared his take on the drama and what really happened including how, according to him, Twitch originally denied that he could be banned over the incident.
Ice Poseidon on plane swatting incident
Ice Poseidon had been livestreaming his experience in the lead-up to boarding his flight from LA to Austin back in April 2017. After revealing his gate number, a troll rang the authorities falsely claiming that the streamer was carrying a bomb which led to him being escorted off the plane by police.
When the plane made an unexpected landing in Phoenix, Denino was horrified to see police arrive on the plane. However, he suspected that he could have been swatted once again. “Please don’t f**king come over to me,” he thought. Sure enough, the police were looking for him.
“Getting pulled off the plane in front of 200 people… these people think I’m a f**cking terrorist or something now,” Denino stated. He then went through a grueling interrogation from the FBI about the incident.
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Ice Poseidon claims Twitch rejected his ban fears
As the event made national headlines, Denino feared he could be at risk of being banned from Twitch. According to him, however, when he brought up his concerns with his Twitch rep he was assured it wouldn’t happen as the swatting didn’t occur during his stream.
“I asked my Twitch representative, I said ‘Hey, am I going to get banned because the swatting didn’t happen on stream. Nobody knew I got swatted until it came out on the f**cking news,” Denino claimed. “He’s like ‘well, it didn’t happen on stream so, no.'”
However, he was subsequently banned indefinitely and the internet erupted over the drama. “When you get banned on Twitch, you pretty much got f**cked and no one’s going to watch me anymore.”
The first few days following the ban were, understandably, hard for Denino given how he had built his career on Twitch. He also claimed it was particularly upsetting as it brought back his past before he began streaming when he had “nothing” and he “didn’t want to lose” it all.
Yet, Denino persevered and moved to YouTube gaining 735K subscribers, as of writing. Although, he has since made various appeals to Twitch to have his ban revoked.
