Live-streaming platform Kick launched just under a year ago, promising to be a platform made for creators, by creators. Its promises were enticing: offering the friendliest revenue split in the industry, only taking five percent of subscription revenue earned on the platform (Twitch takes 30 percent for “Partners,” 50 percent for other streamers), and recently launching a Creator Program where up-and-coming creators could earn a salary just for streaming.
All of that has been overshadowed by the constant controversies, some of them built into the foundation of the site. Eddie Craven, who co-founded the crypto gambling site Stake, also co-founded Kick, and the two sites are seemingly intertwined.
Outside of gambling, Kick is known for having a lax content moderation policy and allowing creators banned on other platforms to stay on its site. Though it does have Community Guidelines, it’s unclear how deeply it’s enforced. Chat rooms and usernames are consistently full of slurs and epithets, and some have raised suspicions about bots running rampant. Adin Ross, one of the platform’s most notorious and successful streamers, has watched porn on stream, encouraged a viewer to throw urine on a family member, and as of last week nearly started a global catastrophe by saying he was going to stream with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un (thankfully, it turned out to be a fake).
But in Kick’s latest controversy this week, streamers Paul “Ice Poseidon” Denino and Sam Pepper live-streamed an uncomfortable (at times seemingly dangerous and nonconsensual) interaction between one of their fans and an alleged sex worker in Brisbane, Australia. All the while, Kick’s CEO Eddie Craven sent multiple laughing emojis in the live stream chat, doing nothing to stop the stream.
The move from the CEO, as well as the footage still being left up on the platform as of today, has left some Kick streamers feeling that the money isn’t worth the drama. …
Steven Asarch
Steven Asarch is an internet culture reporter who lives on Twitch and YouTube. After graduating from Baruch College, he wrote for IBT Media, Newsweek and Insider. In 2021, he executive produced the docu-series "Onision in Real Life" on Discovery +.
