The Pormanove case reopens a radical question: to what extent can we dispose of our bodies in front of a camera? And who is really responsible? by Andrea Monti – Initially published in Italian by Italian Tech – La Repubblica
The live streaming death of Jean Pormanove, the French content creator who had previously voluntarily subjected himself to torture broadcast in real time, is tragically nothing new. In 2023, a Chinese YouTuber died in front of cameras in a desperate attempt to lose weight, and in the same year, almost in tragic counterpoint, another influencer died as a result of a diet to prevent weight gain.
Other self-harming or dangerous challenges — with fatal consequences for those who perform them — have been widespread for some time and represent a sign of the normalisation of death on live TV.
Without resorting to facile sociological or psychological analysis, it is undeniable that we are beginning to pay the price for experiencing reality through the mediation of a screen —an issue that has been addressed, in the silence of the majority, for over twenty years. Added to this are the consequences of having turned violence into a daily practice, both passively (exposure to gruesome videos and news reports) and actively (playing “games” that leave nothing to the imagination when it comes to stabbing, shooting and blowing things up).
The perverse consequences of the attention economy
It is not a question of criminalising video games or action films, but of understanding — as David Grossman, a US Army medical officer, denounced in 1995 in his controversial book On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society — that certain behaviours can be latently triggered and normalised through their continuous repetition, tolerated and then even encouraged. Grossman was talking about how the US military taught people to kill, but the terms of the issue are certainly applicable outside the training needs of an armed force.
To these considerations must be added others relating to the continuous pursuit of views—i.e., monetisation—of online content. On the one hand, the goal is to capture all audience niches, no matter how extreme, by applying Barnum’s law —a little bit of everything for everyone, including those with questionable preferences. On the other hand, “viewers”, including those with questionable preferences, need constant thrills to stay glued to their screens and therefore “reward” increasingly extreme content.
As the facts show, the convergence of these “needs” has dramatic consequences
Are extreme challenges prohibited?
Intuitively, one might think that behaviour such as that of Pormanove and all those like him and before him who perform irresponsible acts in front of a camera should be banned. However, as counterintuitive as it may seem, the voluntary choice to engage in extreme practices is not, in essence, illegal or prohibited because it falls within the right to do what we want with our bodies. It is true that according to Article 5 of the Italian Civil Code, “Acts of disposal of one’s own body are prohibited when they cause a permanent reduction in physical integrity, or when they are otherwise contrary to the law, public order or morality”, but in practice this rule is widely disregarded. Therefore, no one prevents us from smoking, eating or drinking to the point of (irreparably) damaging our health or losing our lives because no one, among those who have the power/duty to do so, takes responsibility for preventing dangerous behaviour that could lead to death.
From the dissemination of gruesome content to murder
If, then, someone pushes us to commit such acts, the scenario becomes somewhat more complex. It would seem that, up to a certain point, Pormanove had knowingly subjected himself to abuse as part of the “editorial choice” regarding the content he conveyed. The nature of the video is debatable — not too different, incidentally, from horror films that have become classics in the history of cinema. Therefore, the intervention of the judiciary could be invoked to apply Article 528 of the Italian Criminal Code, which punishes the dissemination of obscene and gruesome material.
Had there not been a tragic ending, Pormanove and its staff would have risked prosecution in Italy for the potential commission of this offence, given that Article 6 of the Criminal Code establishes that anyone who commits an act abroad that happens, even in part, in Italy, is an offence under Italian law and can be prosecuted in Italy.
However, the Pormanove case is not limited to liability for the dissemination of content because, at one point in her last video, he apparently asked her tormentors to stop. If this circumstance were proven, the scenario would change radically because we would most likely be faced with voluntary manslaughter or, if there were doubts as to whether his “partners” understood that they had to stop, manslaughter — i.e. committed through negligence.
The role of platforms, but also of users
The first reaction when events of this kind occur is to call for a crackdown on content-sharing platforms, which are said to be responsible for not doing enough to prevent them in order to gain data and advertising revenue.
But is what happened so different from the constant exposure of violence, death and tragedy in the traditional media? As written years ago on these pages, it is extremely difficult to draw a line between the often harsh necessities of reporting dramatic events and their exploitation as clickbait (a theme that is not new, and has been debated in the form of the aesthetics of misery since the last century).
There is, however, something deeply disturbing about debates with bombings in the background reminiscent of the endless, inconclusive – and therefore attractive – Monday-diatribes on the outcomes of Sunday’s soccer matches, in the invitation to “follow the war minute by minute” as if it were the evolution of a reality show or, worse, a snuff movie, in the uncritical repetition of this or that narrative, depending on the side one has chosen to take, but after thirty seconds of advertising.
Are “spectators” jointly responsible?
The criteria for attributing responsibility under Italian law and European regulations allow, on a case-by-case basis, for the media and platforms to be held liable for the consequences of being a contributing cause of tragic events. However, little or nothing is said about the possibility of considering “indirect instigators” as potential co-perpetrators, i.e. those who demand increasingly extreme content in exchange for views that generate income.
This is an extremely delicate issue because it is not easy to draw a line between the need to satisfy one’s audience and being so subservient to it as to risk one’s life, as musicians and actors whose careers are too often conditioned by choices that have nothing to do with art and everything to do with “promotion” are well aware. To give a provocative example, we could ask ourselves whether those stars who fell victim to alcohol or heroin really did not want to be saved, or whether their lives were abandoned in the name of “creating the myth” — and monetising it.
Are fans — and platform users — therefore also responsible for what artists and content creators do for them (or for their own interests)?
It would be extremely difficult to legally establish collective and widespread responsibility on the part of those who — by appreciating a lifestyle or requesting certain types of content — pushed or induced Pormanove to subject himself to the abuse that led to his death. Although the issue of the role of the “pack” in cases of group violence would leave some room for discussion.
Upstream, however, we should ask ourselves whether in such cases we can really talk about freedom to choose one’s own end, when the entire traditional and digital media system is built to reward the extreme, the morbid, the viral.
We should also ask ourselves whether we have entered a new form of slavery based on the exploitation of the body, in which the difference between the exploited and the exploiter is increasingly blurred, and in the name of which people are willing to do anything.
Once upon a time, gladiators knew they would die for entertainment, but that did not mean they accepted their fate. Today, however, the spectacle of suffering is made possible by those who suffer it. And perhaps, behind every extreme gesture, there is not just an individual, but the entire audience that watches and makes it possible.