CREATe is happy to present the twelfth entry into our series of working papers released in 2025 ‘Humiliation, Abuse, and Death Live on Air: Who Has Failed the Streamer Jean Pormanove?’ by Arthur Ehlinger, Teaching Fellow in Digital Media and Creative Industries at the University of Birmingham, and affiliate researcher at CREATe.
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The death of French streamer Raphaël Graven, known online as Jean Pormanove, marked one of the most disturbing moments in the short history of live streaming. Over 12 days in August 2025, thousands watched as he endured continuous humiliation and abuse on Kick, a platform that has positioned itself as the permissive alternative to Twitch. His suffering was not hidden, accidental, or fleeting. It was broadcast openly, monetised in real time, amplified, and ultimately ignored by those with the power and responsibility to intervene.
This new working paper reconstructs the chain of decisions and omissions that allowed this tragedy to unfold. Rather than treating it as an isolated scandal, it examines the case as a window into increasing prominence of “shock” within contemporary digital platforms and the limits of European flagship regulation: the Digital Services Act (DSA). Platforms like Kick grow by amplifying what is sensational, extreme, and disturbing, and audiences often respond with giddy fascination or disbelief. On the other hand, “shock” also becomes an emerging regulatory concern which trusted Flaggers under the DSA already use as a reporting category for high-risk content. This duality sits at the heart of this case.
The argument of this paper is simple but stark: the incredibly sophisticated machinery that should have protected a vulnerable individual failed at every level.
On the platform side, Kick repeatedly ignored clear signs of escalating harm. The streams were visible, widely shared, and well within the range of content that should have triggered internal enforcement. Viewers flagged the abuse, journalists reported it, and Kick had previous experience with the same channel, having already banned it once. Yet the broadcast continued uninterrupted until death. This points not only to a failure of moderation, but to the deeper incentives that shape the platform economy: shock attracts attention, attention generates money, and content policies often bend, or collapse, when confronted with the promise of monetisable spectacle.
The next layer of the analysis turns to ARCOM, the French media regulator. Under the DSA, it serves as France’s Digital Services Coordinator, a role that grants new investigative and enforcement powers. Despite being formally seized on multiple occasions by NGOs and journalists, the ARCOM did not act. The paper shows how this inaction undermines one of the DSA’s central promises: that public authorities will provide meaningful oversight in an environment where platforms routinely fail to self-regulate.
Law enforcement and political authorities also play a critical part in the story. Police were aware of the situation early, yet hesitated to intervene, treating the broadcasts as a borderline case rather than an urgent matter involving coercion and violence. Government officials, who in other contexts have shown remarkable responsiveness, particularly when public order or political interests were at stake, remained largely silent until after the tragedy. Their belated reactions highlight a striking asymmetry: mechanisms that can be triggered rapidly for political crises remain unused when the victims are ordinary individuals.
Ultimately, the paper argues that the EU’s digital governance model cannot rely solely on the quality of its legal frameworks. It depends on the willingness and capability of institutions to enforce them. The death of Jean Pormanove was preventable. It happened not because the law is powerless, but because the actors entrusted with that law did not use the tools available to them to enforce it.
This piece is unsettling, but it is a necessary contribution to ongoing debates about platform governance and digital regulation.
Humiliation, Abuse, and Death Live on Air: Who Has Failed the Streamer Jean Pormanove?
Arthur Ehlinger
CREATe Working Paper 2025/12
Abstract
This article examines the death of French streamer “Jean Pormanove”, who died live on the platform Kick after 12 days of on-camera abuse, watched by thousands and monetised in real time. It reconstructs the chain of accountability that made this tragedy possible and analyses the failures of multiple actors with the power to intervene: the platform, the media regulator, judicial and police authorities, and political leaders. Their combined inaction enabled the sustained exploitation, until death, of a vulnerable individual on a major live streaming platform. Through a socio-legal analysis, the article shows how this case exposes the limits of the EU’s digital governance model, whose effectiveness depends less on legislative sophistication than on the willingness and capacity of institutions to enforce it. Using “shock” as a central analytical lens, the paper explores its dual role as a driver of online visibility and an emerging regulatory concern. It concludes that without meaningful enforcement, the promise of a safer digital environment will remain largely illusory.
Full paper can be downloaded here.