Death of streamer Jean Pormanove: Socialist Party MP Arthur Delaporte wants to "facilitate" the work of judges dealing with "problematic" channels

The Socialist MP evokes a "feeling of helplessness" that he had already observed as chairman of the parliamentary committee on the psychological effects of TikTok on minors. "The problem is that there are vaguenesses, particularly in the respect of who should regulate," he points out.

PS MP Arthur Delaporte "is considering making it easier for the judge to suspend, as a precautionary measure, a certain number of channels which continue to post problematic content," he declared on franceinfo on Wednesday, August 20, after the death of streamer Jean Pormanove during a live broadcast on Monday on the Kick platform.

"What is certain is that there is a staging of humiliation" and it "contravenes the fundamental principles of the defense of human rights," recalled the deputy of the 2nd constituency of Calvados. "There is already a legal framework," he noted. "The problem today is that there are vaguenesses, particularly in the respect of who must regulate." In February, the Human Rights League (LDH) had seized the Arcom to denounce "Kick's lax moderation" in the face of "real violence that could correspond to criminal qualifications." This referral remained "without any response," certified the LDH in an article in Mediapart.

"Arcom had said: 'I don't know if it's up to me to regulate or if it's up to Europe, I don't know who the legal representative is.' And so all this legal prevarication took time," regrets Arthur Delaporte. The MP says he "is contacted every day by individuals" who alert him to problematic videos. "These phenomena of control exist" and the death of Jean Pormanove (whose birth name is Raphaël Graven), a streamer known on Kick for suffering physical and psychological humiliations filmed live, is "the radicalization of these excesses."

In addition to lamenting the "total lack of real moderation" of the Australian platform, a competitor to Twitch, Arthur Delporte is "stunned" by the "powerlessness" of public and judicial authorities to regulate this type of online content. "There have been legal actions, police actions too, and in fact, nothing has happened," says the socialist MP. A "feeling of powerlessness" that he has already observed as president of the parliamentary committee on the psychological effects of TikTok on minors.

Following Mediapart 's revelations in December 2024 about the problematic content of this "Lokal" channel, followed by hundreds of thousands of subscribers, the Nice prosecutor's office opened an investigation, notably for "intentional violence in a group against vulnerable people" and "broadcasting of recorded images relating to the commission of offenses of intentional attacks on the integrity of the person." "Naruto" and "Safine," two streamers who humiliated Jean Pormanove, were taken into custody, then released. "The people likely to be implicated," but also those supposedly "victims denied the commission of offenses," explained the Nice prosecutor's office.

This investigation is still ongoing. Following the death of Jean Pormanove at the age of 46, the Nice prosecutor's office announced that it was opening another investigation "to determine the cause of death" and requested an autopsy.

Upon the announcement of the streamer's death, Clara Chappaz, Minister Delegate for Digital Affairs, denounced on the X network "an absolute horror" and indicated that she had "contacted Arcom and made a report on Pharos" , the service for combating online violence. A guest on franceinfo on Monday, Marie Turcan, a journalist at Mediapart who co-wrote the investigation into Kick and Jean Pormanove, recalled that the online investigative media "had contacted Clara Chappaz in December 2024 at the time of the reshuffle. They had tried to respond to us, but it was clearly not the priority."