What is Kick, the platform on which streamer Jean Pormanove died?
Screenshot of the Kick homepage, August 19, 2025.
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Raphaël Graven, known online as Jean Pormanove, or JP, died on Monday, August 18 in Contes, north of Nice, while participating in a livestream (live video) on Kick. For several years, he had been subjected to bullying, violence, and humiliation live. While an investigation into the "search for the causes of death" has been opened by the Nice prosecutor’s office, the tragedy highlights this platform little known to the general public and its particularly permissive moderation policy.
What is Kick?
Kick is a live video platform, whose operation and appearance are very similar to Twitch, the Amazon platform widely used by video game enthusiasts. Launched in 2022, it is an Australian company, even if it is unknown who its investors are beyond two co-founders, Bijan Tehrani and Ed Craven.
La mort en direct du streameur Jean Pormanove, humilié et maltraité pendant des mois
Like on Twitch, for a few euros, viewers can "subscribe" to channels to benefit from certain advantages. In August, Kick claimed an audience of 817,000 people over a month, less than a third of what Twitch displays over the same period (2.1 million), according to the StreamCharts site.
How is this streaming platform different from others?
Kick stands out from other streaming sites first of all by its particularly attractive remuneration system for content creators. The platform only takes 5% of the sums paid by Internet users to subscribe to channels, where this levy ranges from 30% to 50% on Twitch for example.
The second "asset" of the platform is its more permissive moderation policy. It notably authorizes certain gambling games prohibited on Twitch, and allows scenes with sexual connotations, or involving humiliation or violence, such as those suffered by Jean Pormanove, to be broadcast without there being an automatic sanction.
Does that mean you can do anything on Kick?
Not everything is accepted there, but the site has largely sought to take advantage of its more "sulfurous" image to attract influencers excluded from other platforms or specializing in provocation. It has notably welcomed the American star streamer Amouranth, temporarily sanctioned on Twitch for videos whose content was deemed to have an overly sexual character, or the pro-Trump influencer Adin Ross.
Little averse to sexist, homophobic and racist provocations, the latter had opportunely joined Kick after being banned from Twitch in 2023 (he has since been reinstated). If Kick is mainly English-speaking, there are also some French-speaking influencers hunted from other streaming services, such as the youtuber Marvel Fitness, convicted in 2021 for moral harassment.
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With such a selection of content producers, Kick is very regularly the subject of controversy. In September 2023, an escort girl was thus filmed and forcibly held in the apartment of the American streamer Ice Poseidon (real name Paul Denino), provoking amused comments from one of the platform’s bosses, Ed Craven.
A year later, two other American influencers, Jack Doherty and Dumbdumbjeez, were excluded from Kick. The first for crashing his car live, the second for trapping a homeless woman. Adin Ross, for his part, was able to receive in his lives personalities such as the white supremacist Nick Fuentes or the masculinist influencer Andrew Tate. His streams are also regularly highlighted by the platform itself.
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Pourquoi Andrew Tate, l’influenceur masculiniste, fascine autant certains jeunes hommes
What are its links with the world of online casinos?
Kick is directly linked to a large online betting and gambling platform, Stake, which was created by the same founders. Kick frequently displays advertisements for Stake.
Stake is illegal in France and access to the site is blocked in France, as in several other European countries. In the United Kingdom, the platform had acquired a license to legally offer its services, it finally announced in February that it would no longer be accessible in this country, after a scandal: Stake had launched an advertising campaign using the image of a porn star to promote its online betting service, which earned it the opening of an investigation by the local regulator.
The company is also targeted by several complaints in the United States, where it assures that its activity is legal but several States believe that it violates gambling laws.
Rectificatif le 19 août à 17 h 05 : correction d’une erreur dans le nom du streameur exclu pour avoir piégé une femme sans domicile fixe.
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By Damien Leloup and Olivier Clairouin
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