The title kinda buries the lede there. I thought it was ridiculous to fine a platform just because a streamer happened to die on camera, but no, they were streaming months long abuse and torture of this guy at the hands of his co-streamers.
this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2025
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It is insane how it is even possible to live stream the torture of someone for months without any law enforcement getting involved.
They kinda did. The dudes were taken in as part of an ongoing investigation but were then released. I can see why it’s fared for the cops when even the victims are saying it’s by their own choice. But it’s no excuse for kick.
The investigation, opened in December, is looking into “deliberate violence against vulnerable persons” and “spreading recordings of images related to offences involving deliberate violations of physical integrity,” Martinelli’s statement said. It did not specify why Pormanove could be considered vulnerable.
The statement said two co-streamers allegedly involved in the case were briefly taken into custody in January but were released pending further investigation.
In parallel, the Nice prosecutor said, investigators interviewed Pormanove and one of his co-streamers who both appeared to be victims of violence and humiliation. They “strongly denied being victims of violence, stating that the events were staged in order to `generate a buzz’ and make money.”
It’s all over the place on Facebook and Twitter though. There’s dog fighting, cock fighting, monkey abuse showing up on my Facebook home feed every now and then. This shouldn’t be a surprise really.
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It’s similar to fear factor—you can authorize quite a lot of things in a contract.
The medical examiner has said that they don’t think his death was caused directly by the treatment during the stream.
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OK, but - could he not leave? Or say "i do not want to"? I don't get it
Nice victim blaming.
No, no, not at all, i just do not unterstand it.
A person with a intellectual disability will often be easier for abusers to manipulate and may not value their own well-being over the abusers approval
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If that is the case then I'd like to see how aware they were of what was happening. I'd push for criminal charges against management in that case.
Kick CEO was a top 5 donor to the channel in question. Not only did they know, they actively encouraged it.
Was it real or simulated? I haven't seen any article make a definitive statement.
“Salut maman, Comment tu vas ? Coincé pour un moment avec son jeu de mort, avait-il déclaré. Ça va trop loin. J’ai l’impression d’être séquestré avec leur concept de merde. J’en ai marre, je veux me barrer, l’autre il veut pas, il me séquestre”. (“Hey Mom, how are you? Stuck for a while with his death game,” he said. “This is going too far. I feel like I’m being held captive with their shitty concept. I’m fed up, I want to get out, the other guy doesn’t want me, he’s holding me captive.”)
Just a nitpick, "jeu de mort" would never be translated as "death game". In this context "de mort" would be an intensifier like "fucking" or "damned".
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They deserve to pay every dime of it. They exploited this man's torture with full knowledge of what they were doing to him on stream after multiple complaints
Can somebody explain to me why, emotions aside, the French guy is not responsible for his own choices? Unless it comes to light that he was coerced into staying on the show, why are other parties being held responsible instead of himself?
I'm not looking to be controversial, I'm honestly curious if there's some rational logic to it that I can understand, or this is all emotional.
It's a difficult situation to explain, and it will be even harder to judge.
What seems to be true is that they had a hold on him. They seemed to abuse his mental weaknesses, and regularly made themselves look like benefactor for "saving him from himself" and making him earn a lot of money.
Sure he could have technically walked out any day, but when you're under the influence of manipulative "friends", I'm not sure it's that easy.
Bear in mind that I'm not stating 100% proven facts.
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Well. Devil's advocate, they are holding the streaming service responsible because they didn't block the stream, which presumably would presumably disrupt the streamer's actions. I don't personally think Kick should be responsible at all.
Yeah, I don't see how they're responsible either, but I'm getting lots of emotional replies and nobody actually seems to want to admit they're advocating censorship. Cognitive dissonance is a hell of a thing.
Sometimes censorship is good
Nobody has ever denied that censorship can sometimes be good. The problem has always been who gets to decide when it's good and when it isn't?
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Article 223-15-2 of the French Penal Code. This article punishes the fraudulent abuse of the ignorance or state of weakness of a minor or a person whose particular vulnerability is apparent or known due to age, sickness, disability, pregnancy, or psychological dependency
Whenever you do something that results in the death of another human there needs to be an investigation. From what I can tell no culpability has been found yet, but there is at least some evidence that this person was being held against their will.
However, lots of European countries treat violence like the US treats porn so this could easily be something similar to the pearl clutching that would happen here if somebody was asphyxiated during a BDSM livestream.
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This is straight out of Black Mirror S7E1 and the idea behind the “Dum Dummies” site. 😭
Is it just my ADHD, or did the article completely fail to mention why a streamer was forced by two other streamers to stay awake and ingest poison? Did they hold his family for ransom or something? I need context.
If I understood properly the guy was a kinda homeless person that the two fuckers "hosted" in their house in exchange for participating (being tortured) in their streams. He was disabled or mentally challenged too, and there was another victim of theirs that was handicapped in the flat too.
The alarm has been raised for at least 8 months but neither the police nor the national agencies nor the minister contacted either did or decided to do anything. Every time the police came the victims were saying that all was good and they gave their consent to anything, but on stream they were often asking to call the cops, an ambulance or trying to leave and the two fuckers barred them the exit and threatened to beat them or throw them back to the streets. So they were basically held hostage.
The whole thing is a disgrace. It was the most viewed French language stream on Kick for months, two vulnerable people being tortured on stream and nobody did anything.
From what I understood the two fuckers will probably get a 25 to 30 years of jail sentence, and some of the people who donated money to them to encourage them in the torture also risk prison time. Which I fucking hope they get.
Someone took upon himself to save all the worst clips and try to raise the alarm, they have more than 300 hours of stream capture with evidence of torture and other wrongdoings.
There is even a sequence where the two fuckers try to force him to say that "if he dies on stream, it won't be their fault" but the fault of his "shitty health situation". He flat out refused.
They perfectly knew they were in the process of killing him.
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Neither it, nor several other articles linked by it have clarified this. Frustrating times.
What changed between the 'months of torture' and Naruto and Safine being arrested, and the '10 days ' leading up to his death?
It sounds sick that the French government would decide a man is being tortured yet they're not obligated to intervene... while at the same time they fine a company for not stepping in.
If this man was negligently killed, authorities and kick are to blame, but it's the authorities that should've been the failsafe, not the company. I guess it makes sense that French politicians are Very Mad™ and Seriously Considering Bigger Punishments™.
Exactly. Law enforcement investigated and found no wrongdoing. They’re the ones who dropped the ball here. Was there something else Kick was legally obligated to do? I agree that there was a moral fuck up here resulting in somebody dying. But torture between competent consenting adults is legal. Just like we’re saying BDSM is okay
Also someone else mentioned the TV show Jackass and I just wanna know how some are drawing the line here. So are some of the dangerous stunts on Jackass ok or not? Why?
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I feel completely out of the loop when stuff like this happens.
I went looking around and found an article that expanded a lot on this topic, https://maxread.substack.com/p/who-killed-jean-pormanove
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Should get double finned for torturing Jean + Raja almost beating someone to death on stream.
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The autority should be held accountable too since they opened an investigation but did not force the streamers to temporarly stop streaming till the investigation is finished
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Good thing Sauber is becoming Audi next season. That’s a lot of money for a title sponsor to lose (and it sounds like they deserve to lose it).
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From libé article:
Raphaël Graven, 46, known under the pseudonym Jean Pormanove, died near Nice during a live broadcast on August 18 on the Australian video platform Kick after more than 12 days of live streaming showing him and another man being assaulted and humiliated by two people. Followed by nearly 200,000 viewers, the “Jeanpormanove” channel had for months shown Raphaël Graven being insulted, beaten, having his hair pulled, threatened, and even being shot at without protection with paintball projectiles. According to the channel’s promoters, the content was staged.
Deputy Minister for Digital Affairs Clara Chappaz on Tuesday announced her intention to sue the Kick platform for “breach.” She made the announcement after a meeting convened at Bercy with officials from several ministries (Justice, Interior, Economy) and two independent authorities, accusing Kick of violating the 2004 Digital Trust law.
Can someone point that out the part where this wasn't voluntary or the guy was held captive & not free to leave or end the voluntary abuse at any time?
It looks like idiots kink-playing too hard with extra fines to some platform while the morons try to escape accountability.
Viral compilation threads have shown Pormanove being hit, strangled, and fired at with paintball guns while streaming with Naruto and Safine, whose lawyers claim they hold “no responsibility.”
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