So this is OK by riot standards?

Riot protecting him and giving him a free pass?

This biased way of thinking is not productive. Riot can't go out onto the Internet and hunt down people who might be breaking the rules. People have to use the in-game report system and punishment will be delivered if warranted.

I'm sure plenty reported him, and I'm sure Xmithie reported him.

How are you sure?

Let's understand the punishment system a little.

Firstly, you will only get a review if someone reported you.

Secondly, the punishment system punished based on consistency x severity.

Now let's take a look at high ELO player / streamer behavior:

• many of them don't report each other because:
• they know each other
• they treat it as memes and games
• they are too busy interacting with their stream
• they recieve more hurtful comments and criticism on other social media platforms like reddit and Twitter, so something like this doesn't bother them
• they play 5 million+ games a day (10-15 as a realistic number)
• They have multiple accounts they play on

So let's piece all of that together.

If players dont report each other, there is no display of consistency towards the system.

Even if they do report each other here and there, the amount of games they play dilute the consistency on their toxicity.

Even if an account is getting close to punished, they can play on another account and spread out the toxicity elsewhere.

So unless you can track how many games someone was being reported on the same account with a high ratio of toxicity, they won't get punished for it. All three factors have to be there.

Yeah, discussions regarding the behavior of streamers/content creators have a bit more leniency in regards to the Naming & Shaming rule, though last I had seen mention of it was probably...Early last year, maybe late the year before?

Either way, the rationale is that, as they make their content (and consequently behavior) public (through streams, YouTube videos, etc.), discussing their behavior is fair game.