I would say 100% of their audience should be held accountable. Watching a crime take place, no matter how entertaining it seems, and not reporting it to the police is still a crime. In most civilised countries, complacent viewers are also responsible.

Influencers without complacent viewers are not influencers. Just like dumb people being encouraged by other dumb people to commit a crime are simply criminals. Being an influencer has little to do with it.

Torturing someone to make money, or paying to watch it, is a crime. Police should act accordingly, seize the servers, retrieve the IP addresses, and arrest the criminals.

When is it a crime, and how can the viewer tell? That popular Beast guy does stuff which amounts to humiliation or torture too, depending on the viewpoint. This case reeks of actual abuse, but consenting adults can do all sorts of things without violating any laws.

> Torturing someone to make money, or paying to watch it, is a crime. Police should act accordingly, seize the servers, retrieve the IP addresses, and arrest the criminals.

Absolutely — if what you are seeing actually exceeds the boundaries of consent. A BDSM session where a professional whips a restrained subject to tears would have to be held to the same standard. Obviously, the makers have a responsibility to ensure consent is given, recorded, and can be withdrawn at any time — ignoring consensual non-consent (CNC) in this case for the sake of the argument — and this police investigation may indeed uncover duress, but can a viewer realistically know?

(In this case, possibly, because of the way subscribers could pay for extra torture actions.)

To be fair, they’re not influencer unless they have influencers. Someone live streaming their own beatdown is concerning (but adults will be adults). On the other hand, people using that cry for help as entertainment? That’s an even lower bottom.