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The Onision Controversy Explained

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2 years ago

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  • Controversial YouTuber Onision has been accused of predatory behavior by multiple women, with many claiming that he groomed them to have sex with him once they turned 18.
  • Many of these girls have spoken out, saying his partner Kai has aided him in this misconduct.
  • Chris Hansen has been speaking to many of the women involved and announced on Wednesday that the FBI is investigating.
  • Onision has denied the allegations and has posted a series of videos where he claims he is retiring but has continued to post online.

Who is Onision?

Controversial YouTuber Onision has been making headlines over the past week for a variety of reasons, including being banned from Patreon and posting videos claiming he is retiring. This follows years of accusations of grooming and predatory behavior.

James Jackson, known on the Internet as Onision and to many others as Greg, has been on YouTube since 2006. He has multiple channels with over one million followers and has been embattled in controversy for much of his time online. 

His now ex-wife Skye appeared in his videos, with some elements of his divorce in 2010 broadcasted online. One of his first major controversies to bleed into the YouTube industry, however, happened in 2012 when he was banned from VidCon. 

An ex-girlfriend of his made remarks that she felt he pressured her into having sex. He addressed these claims in a video and repeatedly referred to the number of people she had slept with and used her derogatory words including the word whore. He insinuated that because of this, she could not be sexually assaulted.

“To be only 26 and to have slept with over 20 people is ridiculous,” Jackson said. “And of course she goes to insinuate that when we did make love, that I was forcing her into it, that I was pressuring her into it and she didn’t really want to. That’s funny coming from someone who has slept with over 20 people.” 

This ended up landing him in hot water with a lot of YouTubers, several of whom posted videos of their own calling these comments slut-shaming. Some also said they believed Jackson was being accused of a serious crime and should not brush that off. Many people spread a petition that was actually a year old at that point, calling for people to unsubscribe from him and to get YouTube to revoke its partnership with him.

Because there was so much backlash and outrage over Jackson’s video, he announced on Facebook that he would not be attending VidCon. He said he received an email from VidCon founder Hank Green saying his presence could create a hostile and unsafe environment.

Accusations Against Jackson and Anderson

More recent controversies surround serious allegations against him. Several girls have claimed that Jackson and his partner Kai Anderson have groomed them from a young age to later be involved in a sexual relationship. The two have denied these allegations. Rogue Rocket reached out to Jackson and his team for comments regarding the accusations. They said that “any involvement regarding interview or questions is $10,000.”

Jackson’s relationship with Anderson began when Anderson was 17. At the time, Anderson went by the name of “Lainey” and identified as a woman. He has since transitioned and identifies as a male. When their relationship began, they would drive across state lines to legally have sexual encounters. They are now married with two kids, and many of the accusations claim that Jackson has used Anderson to lure girls in.

Sarah’s Story

One of the most recent incidents comes from a girl named Sarah. She began talking to Anderson and Jackson online when she was a 13-year-old fan, and was mainly interested in Anderson.

By the time she was 14 and 15, she claims they started texting and sent flirty messages, including a topless photo of her. Sarah says when she was 16, she was going through some personal and family troubles and she ended up moving in with Jackson and Anderson. She lived with them on and off for a couple of years.

Sarah claims that when she first moved in, the relationship was not sexual at all, though there were romantic insinuations like physical contact and cuddling. She added, however, that the relationship became sexual after she turned 18.

Sarah, now 19, did a livestream at the end of August discussing their relationship, which started a big conversation online. She ended up being interviewed by YouTuber Blaire White, who frequently posts about Jackson and the allegations against him.

“It hurts to say this, but I feel like they knew what they were doing,” Sarah said of Jackson and Anderson inviting her to live with them as a teenager in order to later have sex with her when she was of legal age. 

“Yeah. I think anyone watching this probably feels the same,” White responded. “That there’s no reason really to have a teenager move in with you, send the message they sent, and then conveniently and coincidentally be intimate with you after you turn 18.” 

In later interviews, Sarah explicitly said that she felt that she was groomed.

While speaking with White, she added that in the time before she turned 18, Jackson often forced her to act like there was nothing flirty about their relationship. She claimed he told her what to say in a video posted to one of his channels, despite her not wanting to be in it.

“He really pressured me into making it. And I didn’t want to,” she said. “I have bloopers of me literally having a mental breakdown, like sobbing because I was just so overwhelmed.” 

She added that he also would lie about their relationship.

“And also what hurt me a lot was having to watch him say ‘Oh we don’t even hug Sarah, we don’t even do this or that.’ And it’s like, I’m sitting there at 16 watching this like ‘yes you do,’” she told White. 

White also questioned Sarah about an NDA she was allegedly forced to sign. 

“You told me off-camera that you signed an NDA the morning after you were intimate with them for the first time,” White said. 

 “Yeah,” Sarah responded. “He and Kai decided that everyone in their life needed to sign an NDA and I was no exception to that. The NDA was 1000% for me to not do what I’m doing right now.” 

Shiloh’s Story

In September, not long after Sarah told her story, another girl by the name of Shiloh posted to Twitter about her relationship with Jackson. Many knew some details about her story, as they were public and posted on YouTube when they dated in 2011. This series of tweets, however, painted a larger picture.

Shiloh says she first began contacting Jackson when she was a singer in Canada. They would talk on Skype while he was still married to his first wife. She was 17, and Jackson told her about his divorce, adding that he loved her. 

Shiloh claims that he ended up meeting her in a hotel in Pennsylvania after researching that it would be legal for them to have sexual relations there. The first thing he said to her was, “I can’t wait to get you pregnant.”

When the police learned of Jackson’s presence in the hotel with Shiloh, she claims they asked him to leave. According to Shiloh, there were cameras present in the room and they searched for child pornography. Shiloh has since said that the cameras were not recording at the time. 

She says that after this encounter, he began to alienate Shiloh from her mother. He rented an apartment near where she lived and waited until she turned 18. He convinced her to get a tattoo with his name while she was still underage. 

The tweets then turn to discuss alleged incidents of control and manipulation. Shiloh claims he locked her out of a room while she cried and begged for him not to while he masturbated to porn. She also said that she sometimes slept next to his office chair so she could wake up and service him.

She claimed that he shaved her head during sex to degrade her and give her a list of rules to follow. She says she was told to not consume intoxicating substances, wear makeup or bras, have social media accounts without him knowing the password, among other things. 

At one turning point, she claims he filmed a breakdown while she was trying to leave him. She alleges that the police took her to a mental health facility because when he didn’t let her call her mom, she threatened suicide while he was on the phone with the police.

They broke up after this, but he “lured” her back in and let her pick an engagement ring.  She said that their sexual encounters were sometimes so aggressive she was in physical distress. 

Shiloh then says she became pregnant, but the fetus died and did not pass, meaning it was not a full miscarriage. She explained that she was at risk of going septic but he refused to pay for her healthcare. She ended up going back to Canada, where she ended up going into labor. 

He ended up posting a video announcing their break-up and she claims he cast her as a liar. 

While she was in the hospital, Shiloh’s mother hid her passport so she could not return to see him. Jackson gave her $1,100 to get a new one. She says she spent the money elsewhere and got away from him.

Billie’s Story

Another girl named Billie has also come forward with her story. She had posted about some of the toxic elements of their relationship before. In 2017, she tweeted that he wanted to punish her after she smoked marijuana. The punishments included getting a tattoo and chaining herself to a wall. 

She revealed more when speaking with Dateline and To Catch a Predator’s Chris Hansen. Hansen currently has a YouTube presence where he has extensively covered Jackson’s case. He has reached out to speak with Jackson, but Jackson said he would only speak for $350,000.

During her interview, Billie said that the relationship started when Anderson messaged her online. When she was over 18, she was flown out to meet Anderson and Jackson in person and visit them at their home. 

She claimed she was mainly interested in Anderson and had no idea what she was getting into when she visited the first time. Jackson was insistent that he watch the two of them kiss. On their first visit, she says nothing sexual happened, however, this changed when she came back again. 

She also said that she does not think anything illegal happened between her, Anderson, or Jackson, but noted that she felt they were always walking towards the line. Much of the time she visited overlapped with Sarah living there, and Billie did say that she felt something illegal could have happened with Sarah. She did not specify what laws may have been broken. 

Billie said that when the two were there, they would spend time with Jackson and Anderson’s kids and did a lot of “babysitting.”

“But if it was both of us, that’s what we were doing,” she told Hansen. “Babysitting, cleaning, helping cook food, just you know helping with whatever general grocery shopping kind of thing.“

“Did you get paid to do this?” Hansen asked. 

Billie said she was not paid to do this but was paid for social media moderation.

“It sounds like they treated you like the help, and the help was expected to service them sexually,” Hansen said. “Is that fair?”

“Yeah, I feel like the dynamics just really weird,” Billie said.

She also claimed she had to sign contracts like Sarah did, saying she signed between four or five. 

FBI Investigation

Billie’s interview with Hansen ended with Hansen making an announcement. 

“I should let you and our audience know that I did have a conversation with the FBI yesterday. We’re breaking news here,” he said. “And obviously there is evidence that some young women have that could very well be of interest to investigators.” 

He claimed that while Jackson and Anderson were careful when it came to their physical sexual relationships, there could be cases of transmission of child pornography. In a previous interview with YouTuber Daniel Sulzbach, also known by Repzion, Sulzbach said that there could be many cases of this. 

Sulzbach claimed that Jackson had deleted online forums after Hansen started talking about him online, likely because young girls were posting photos in those forum discussion threads. 

“There’s archived stuff of images of girls from the age of, literally 12, all the way to 16 or 17 years of age and they’re all scantily clad or sometimes just their underwear.” 

On Wednesday, Hansen told his audience that the FBI is investigating.

Recent Scandals and Content

Jackson has seemingly gone unscathed and remains on many of the platforms he has a strong presence on. This changed on November 26 when he was banned from Patreon for doxxing. 

He tweeted a screenshot of texts he said he sent to Billie, but included her phone number. The tweet was removed within an hour of it being posted, and Patreon considered this to be doxxing, which is a violation of their policy. 

“Yes, we removed Onision from Patreon as he violated our Bullying and Harassment as it relates to doxing,” they said in a statement to The Verge. 

Jackson responded to the news of his ban in a meltdown on YouTube that day, then followed with an apology video. On Wednesday he made another video where he announced his retirement, though it appeared to not be serious. 

He continued to post tweets throughout Wednesday, some of which contained sexually explicit language. He also tweeted a link to a new website for his fans. He did a livestream playing video games. 

On Thursday he posted another video called “left” where he packed his bags as though he was leaving. This video also contained meltdowns and appeared to have been made in jest.

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Hackers Hit Twitch Again, This Time Replacing Backgrounds With Image of Jeff Bezos

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2 weeks ago

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October 8, 2021

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The hack appears to be a form of trolling, though it’s possible that the infiltrators were able to uncover a security flaw while reviewing Twitch’s newly-leaked source code.

Bezos Prank

Hackers targeted Twitch for a second time this week, but rather than leaking sensitive information, the infiltrators chose to deface the platform on Friday by swapping multiple background images with a photo of former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. 

According to those who saw the replaced images firsthand, the hack appears to have mostly — and possibly only — affected game directory headers. Though the incident appears to be nothing more than a surface-level prank, as Amazon owns Twitch, it could potentially signal greater security flaws. 

For example, it’s possible the hackers could have used leaked internal security data from earlier this week to discover a network vulnerability and sneak into the platform. 

The latest jab at the platforms came after Twitch assured its users it has seen “no indication” that their login credentials were stolen during the first hack. Still, concerns have remained regarding the potential for others to now spot cracks in Twitch’s security systems.

It’s also possible the Bezos hack resulted from what’s known as “cache poisoning,” which, in this case, would refer to a more limited form of hacking that allowed the infiltrators to manipulate similar images all at once. If true, the hackers likely would not have been able to access Twitch’s back end. 

The photo changes only lasted several hours before being returned to their previous conditions. 

First Twitch Hack 

Despite suspicions and concerns, it’s unclear whether the Bezos hack is related to the major leak of Twitch’s internal data that was posted to 4chan on Wednesday.

That leak exposed Twitch’s full source code — including its security tools — as well as data on how much Twitch has individually paid every single streamer on the platform since August 2019. 

It also revealed Amazon’s at least partially developed plans for a cloud-based gaming library, codenamed Vapor, which would directly compete with the massively popular library known as Steam.

Even though Twitch has said its login credentials appear to be secure, it announced Thursday that it has reset all stream keys “out of an abundance of caution.” Users are still being urged to change their passwords and update or implement two-factor authentication if they haven’t already. 

See what others are saying: (The Verge) (Forbes) (CNET)

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Twitch Blames Server Configuration Error for Hack, Says There’s No Indication That Login Info Leaked

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2 weeks ago

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October 7, 2021

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The platform also said full credit card numbers were not reaped by hackers, as that data is stored externally. 

Login and Credit Card Info Secure

Twitch released a security update late Wednesday claiming it had seen “no indication” that users’ login credentials were stolen by hackers who leaked the entire platform’s source code earlier in the day.

“Full credit card numbers are not stored by Twitch, so full credit card numbers were not exposed,” the company added in its announcement.

The leaked data, uploaded to 4chan, includes code related to the platform’s security tools, as well as exact totals of how much it has individually paid every single streamer on the platform since August 2019. 

Early Thursday, Twitch also announced that it has now reset all stream keys “out of an abundance of caution.” Streamers looking for their new keys can visit a dashboard set up by the platform, though users may need to manually update their software with the new key before being able to stream again depending on what kind of software they use.

As far as what led to the hackers being able to steal the data, Twitch blamed an error in a “server configuration change that was subsequently accessed by a malicious third party,” confirming that the leak was not the work of a current employee who used internal tools. 

Will Users Go to Other Streaming Platforms?

While no major creators have said they are leaving Twitch for a different streaming platform because of the hack, many small users have either announced their intention to leave Twitch or have said they are considering such a move. 

It’s unclear if the leak, coupled with other ongoing Twitch controversies, will ultimately lead to a significant user exodus, but there’s little doubt that other platforms are ready and willing to leverage this hack in the hopes of attracting new users. 

At least one big-name streamer has already done as much, even if largely only presenting the idea as a playful jab rather than with serious intention. 

“Pretty crazy day today,” YouTube’s Valkyrae said on a stream Wednesday while referencing a tweet she wrote earlier the day.

“YouTube is looking to sign more streamers,” that tweet reads. 

“I mean, they are! … No shade to Twitch… Ah! Well…” Valkyrae said on stream before interrupting herself to note that she was not being paid by YouTube to make her comments. 

See what others are saying: (Engadget) (BBC) (Gamerant)

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The Entirety of Twitch Has Been Leaked Online, Including How Much Top Creators Earn

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3 weeks ago

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October 6, 2021

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The data dump, which could be useful for some of Twitch’s biggest competitors, could signify one of the most encompassing platform leaks ever.

Massive Collection of Data Leaked 

Twitch’s full source code was uploaded to 4chan Wednesday morning after it was obtained by hackers.

Among the 125 GB of stolen data is information revealing that Amazon, which owns Twitch, has at least partially developed plans for a cloud-based gaming library. That library, codenamed Vapor, would directly compete with the massively popular library known as Steam.

With Amazon being the all-encompassing giant that it is, it’s not too surprising that it would try to develop a Steam rival, but it’s eyecatching news nonetheless considering how much the release of Vapor could shake up the market.

The leaked data also showcased exactly how much Twitch has paid its creators, including the platform’s top accounts, such as the group CriticalRole, as well as steamers xQcOW, Tfue, Ludwig, Moistcr1tikal, Shroud, HasanAbi, Sykkuno, Pokimane, Ninja, and Amouranth.

These figures only represent payouts directly from Twitch. Each creator mentioned has made additional money through donations, sponsorships, and other off-platform ventures. Sill, the information could be massively useful for competitors like YouTube Gaming, which is shelling out big bucks to ink deals with creators. 

Data related to Twitch’s internal security tools, as well as code related to software development kits and its use of Amazon Web Services, was also released with the hack. In fact, so much data was made public that it could constitute one of the most encompassing platform dumps ever.

Creators Respond

Streamer CDawgVA, who has just under 500,000 subscribers on Twitch, tweeted about the severity of the data breach on Wednesday.

“I feel like calling what Twitch just experienced as “leak” is similar to me shitting myself in public and trying to call it a minor inconvenience,” he wrote. “It really doesn’t do the situation justice.”

Despite that, many of the platform’s top streamers have been quite casual about the situation.

“Hey, @twitch EXPLAIN?”xQc tweeted. Amouranth replied with a laughing emoji and the text, “This is our version of the Pandora papers.” 

Meanwhile, Pokimane tweeted, “at least people can’t over-exaggerate me ‘making millions a month off my viewers’ anymore.”

Others, such as Moistcr1tikal and HasanAbi argued that their Twitch earning are already public information given that they can be easily determined with simple calculations. 

Could More Data Come Out?

This may not be the end of the leak, which was labeled as “part one.” If true, there’s no reason to think that the leakers wouldn’t publish a part two. 

For example, they don’t seem to be too fond of Twitch and said they hope this data dump “foster[s] more disruption and competition in the online video streaming space.”

They added that the platform is a “disgusting toxic cesspool” and included the hashtag #DoBetterTwitch, which has been used in recent weeks to drive boycotts against the platform as smaller creators protest the ease at which trolls can use bots to spam their chats with racist, sexist, and homophobic messages.

Still, this leak does appear to lack one notable set of data: password and address information of Twitch users.

That doesn’t necessarily mean the leakers don’t have it. It could just mean they are only currently interested in sharing Twitch’s big secrets. 

Regardless, Twitch users and creators are being strongly urged to change their passwords as soon as possible and enable two-factor authentication.

See what others are saying: (The Verge) (Video Games Chronicle) (Kotaku)

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