VTuber Silvervale Latest Streamer To Face Harassment For Streaming 'Hogwarts Legacy'

Hogwarts Legacy is at the center of yet another Twitch controversy. Weeks after Shelby of Girlfriend Reviews was moved to tears by the toxicity in her Hogwarts Legacy chat, VTuber Silvervale had a similar experience, as the chat in her stream of Hogwarts Legacy got out of hand a few days ago.

Another Twitch Streamer, Silvervale, a VTuber, was brought to tears after being doxxed/harassed for playing Hogwarts Legacy. pic.twitter.com/laFcX4pOKN

— Michael (@LegacyKillaHD) February 18, 2023

In an emotional outburst, surreally juxtaposed with her smiling model, Silvervale sobbed through claims she had been doxxed and harassed for streaming Hogwarts Legacy — an occurrence that's been purported by many other streamers since it released two weeks ago.

The game has been a hotbed of controversy primarily due to its association with Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, who is accused of being a TERF. While Rowling had no involvement in the game's creation, she will receive royalties from its success, causing activists to call for the game's boycott.

In the case of Silvervale, some contend that Silvervale is misrepresenting the facts of the incident, potentially setting up blowback against the trans community. Silvervale had been streaming the game for days, and while people had disagreed with that decision in her chat, some stated that the chat remained a healthy space. The issue arose when viewers discovered the word "trans" had been banned from her chat.

Silvervale blocked the word 'trans' on her stream 🙃
Tested it to make sure is true.

I don't have to explain why this is gross. The past week for all friends have been gross. I know there was the HP stream but even then why Game > Humans? pic.twitter.com/S5RPLuRDLn

— GoWendi (@VtuberWendi) February 16, 2023

One circulating clip shows a user typing "Trans Rights Are Human Rights" in Silvervale's chat and getting "timed-out" for 10 minutes, meaning they couldn't post in the chat for that duration.

"Harrassment" pic.twitter.com/LyMXotGK9T

— I Am Festival (@festival_sketch) February 17, 2023

Silvervale defended herself by saying that she had not instructed her mods to ban the word "trans" from her stream, but that the word auto-banned by Twitch and messages with the word were held for manual review.

Silvervale clarifies the banning of the word "trans" in her Twitch chat.https://t.co/P5g49iikzG#ENVTuber #VTuber #VShojo pic.twitter.com/DfQwQ3QrqX

— Kuri Rinji | VTuber & Fan Cringe/Drama🌰 (@VTuberCringe) February 16, 2023

Furthermore, others stated there was no proof online that Silvervale was purportedly doxxed, as she publicly claimed. Some have contended she was never doxxed for playing Hogwarts Legacy and may have been referring to a 2021 doxxing of the VShojo community. Others noted that the controversy only served to intensify hatred against trans people in the gaming space.

Hey @_Silvervale_ you've sent a wave of anti-trans hate ripping through the VTuber-sphere both on Twitter and Twitch. Some of us are too scared to stream, and those of us who are streaming still are getting hate raided, botted, sent death threats, told to kill ourselves, etc.

— Äike Signe 🌻 Hobby Dragon VTuber 🐲 (@AikeSigne) February 21, 2023

At the moment, the specifics of what happened with Silvervale are murky, as her claims of doxxing have not been verified with evidence and the most intense examples of toxicity on both sides seem to have appeared after the controversy went viral.

What's certain is that Hogwarts Legacy has become a problem for anyone who plays or is associated with the game on social media, even as the game breaks records on Twitch.