A YouTuber said his life was 'almost ruined' after an anonymous account accused him of sexual misconduct to 'prove how easy it is to cancel' someone

• Gaming YouTuber SVB said an anonymous Twitter user posted false grooming allegations against him.
• The Twitter account then admitted the claims were fake, and said they'd done it to "prove" a point.

A gaming YouTuber has said that false allegations of sexual misconduct almost "ruined" his life, leading him to take a break from content creation.

SVB, who asked Insider not refer to him by his real name for privacy reasons, has 43,000 YouTube subscribers and typically posts videos playing "Overwatch," a team-based first-person shooter video game.

On August 10, he was accused of "grooming" and "manipulating" a 16-year-old girl into sending him nude images by an anonymous Twitter account, according to screenshots he shared with Insider.

SVB told Insider he was hosting a live stream when messages in the chat box began alluding to the accusations, and his moderators told him to go offline to look at them.

"I got really worried. I was like, 'What the hell's going on?' They said, 'Well, it's some serious accusations about you.' And when you hear that, you start to panic," SVB told Insider, saying he went on to click on the links shared in the chat and found the purported posts.

Screenshots provided to Insider by SVB appear to show a tweet from the now-deleted Twitter account @niaplaysow. The purported tweet included a link to TwitLonger, a website where people can write more than 280 characters to post on Twitter.

The Twitlonger post was written by someone who said they were a 17-year-old girl named "Nia" who said she was describing her "first interaction with SVB."

According to the screenshot, "Nia" said SVB got in touch to ask for a photo, and they sent him a selfie, after which he asked for a "topless" photo as well as "weird messages that made me uncomfortable."

It went on to say they were 16 at the time of the messages, while SVB was almost 30. "Nia" accused SVB of being "a manipulator and a groomer."

'This was all fake' to 'prove how easy it is to "cancel" someone'

But within hours of "Nia" going public, another Twitter user, @SwagTortoiseOW, came forward to say that the accusations were "all fake."

"This was all fake and I am Nia," the post said. "Just wanted to prove how easy it is to 'cancel' someone," the post said, according to screenshots. SwagTortoiseOW has since deleted their account.

The user attached a purported screenshot showing they could toggle between the two Twitter accounts and wrote, "This shit took me a day to make with a fake discord account and some inspect element. Crazy how obviously fake it is and how fast people believe this shit."

Insider was unable to identify the owner of the accounts in order to contact them for comment.

On August 12, he posted a YouTube video titled "An internet hoax almost ruined my life. This is my story," in which he said, "I watched my career, that I had spent four odd years working towards, basically go down the drain in 30 minutes."

He also urged his viewers not to use him as an excuse to undermine victims of grooming or any sexual misconduct.

In an interview with Insider on August 16, SVB said he was "disgusted" by the allegations and was "freaking out" at being associated with such "repulsive" acts. He added, "I couldn't understand why someone would do that. Like, why me? Why do it at all? It was hard to process."

He went on to say that the impact of the allegations, personally and professionally, has been "awful."

He said, "It's obviously very hurtful. There was a large number of people saying horrible stuff about me. I don't know if there's a worse thing you can be called than someone who preys on children sexually. I've got to be honest, it just kind of tore me up inside."

SVB told Insider he is now taking a break from content creation.

"It would have ruined my life had it stuck. I would have tried to disprove it, but for a large number of people, they wouldn't have believed me," he said.

28-year-old SVB is based in the UK, and has been posting reviews and breakdowns of "Overwatch" since 2019.

For more stories like this, check out coverage from Insider's Digital Culture team here.