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$49 M fine? So, basically, legal for a fee?
this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2025
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Yes. I saw a video on getting around Flock's AI cameras and he mentions the numerous million dollar lawsuits that regularly result from misuse of their data and the glitches that cause people to have guns pointed at their heads by police.
It is a cost of doing business. Saying 'I'll sue you!' To them is as threatening as charging someone a little extra for that order of coffee they made.
I googled and apparently kick has been doing 180 million revenue yearly, so this is refreshingly high in terms of a fine.
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I mean, Kick probably could be suspending people who stream for an unhealthily long time, maybe suspend his abusive friends, but they didn't force him to take any actions resulting in his death imo.
What exactly is the crime?
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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.
It's sort of an extension of lolcow culture. This is a vid I recommend to watch to understand it.
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.
I really hope they go after peoppe who donated too. Disgusting peoppr all around.
I hardly even know what kick is, i assumed it's just twitch for more degenerate people ald less rules. But why does kick has to pay suck a insane fee? They brodcasted it and didn't do anything when people raised awareness, sure. But the main takeaway is always that people do and watch sick garbage if they have the opportunity. Hell they even pay for it and encourage it.
When they were alerted to it, they did nothing. They simply allowed it to continue, and profited from it.
Worse than that, Kick even gave this channel money and featured it. They are totally complicit.
They brodcasted it and didn’t do anything when people raised awareness, sure.
And they made money on it.
Kinda homeless? The victim is the largest french gaming streamer and definitely not homeless. There's indications of mental health problems but it's only visible on camera. There are no documents verifying it unfortunately (though it seems evident). The two killers are people he's known and hung out with for years.
Edit: The apartment was rented specifically for this stream.
So all those "red room" legends were true. It's just that instead of being in the dark web, it was broadcast in public for the world to see. How dystopian.
The frog in the water pot and the bystander effect are closely linked, methinks.
More ad revenue on the public web
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.
That is murder. These fuckers should be spending the rest of their damn lives in a prison cell.
After the whole spiking their own wifes and mothers to pass around for rape online, including with making videos and now this, i am starting to think France has a pretty bad problem with psychopaths and a society that is looking away or even encouraging it rather than stepping in.
His streams were about self deprecation, humiliation and abuse. He let those two guys abuse him to the limit and apparently they went over the limit.
It was with consent but they still be charged with murder and probably get convicted too.
This went on for weeks, months, and nobody interfered. They just gave a platform for the abuse.
Neither it, nor several other articles linked by it have clarified this. Frustrating times.
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.
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.”
I mean, the footage is all public, right? Why shouldn't the cops be able to watch it with their own eyes, and determine if it's kosher?
execution of the law is always more complicated than we want it to be. They could have been let off as the investigation continued if the victim told the cops "i did everything with full consent and it was all an act for the entertainment of the stream.". Cops/W/e the french version of DA is would possibly need to continue the investigation to show that either he was unable to consent to the actions or it was a lie that there was consent.
I'm just a layperson and maybe it was more cut and dry and the cops really dropped the ball. It just doesn't seem so cut and dry legally to me. Will be interesting to see the outcome of the investigation from this.
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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Sorry, I was making an oblique reference to section 230 that says an internet publisher isn't responsible for what users use their medium for. Even if it is is indecent.
What does US law matter to France in this case?
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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™.
It's not the French government issuing the fine, it's the Australian, where the company is hosted. They probably should have hosted themselves in the US and hid behind the first amendment
Believe it or not, prolonged physical and mental torture is not speech, a religion, a function of the press, an assembly, or a petition. You could probably get some of the physical violence covered by the Second Amendment though, if you have a gun and just do a little of the South Park "he's coming right for us" thing.
I'm not exactly a US constitutional lawyer, but I'm willing to bet that snuff films aren't protected by the First Amendment.
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?
Jackass stunts and fights aren't sustained over multiple days ever
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Black mirror episode IRL.
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
This is straight out of Black Mirror S7E1 and the idea behind the “Dum Dummies” site. 😭
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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