The death of a man in France that was livestreamed on online platform Kick has sparked a police investigation and calls for regulators to examine what happened and how it was allowed to be beamed out live on the internet. What is Kick, what happened, and what could happen next?
What happened?
Raphaël Graven, 46, from southern France and known online as Jean Pormanove, had built a profile on Kick, where he had reportedly gained over a million followers.
He died during an extended live stream on the platform this week. Leading up to his death, he was allegedly physically assaulted and humiliated by co-streamers as viewers watched. Excerpts of hours-long videos, which the Guardian has seen, appear to show Graven being hit, insulted, strangled, and shot at with a paintball gun.
His channel has since been removed, and the co-streamers have been banned while Kick investigates.
A lawyer for one of the co-streamers told local media that Graven had cardiovascular problems and the scenes “are just staged, they follow a script”.
An autopsy has been ordered, and there is a police investigation into Graven’s death.
What is Kick?
Kick is a livestreaming platform similar to Twitch where people often watch people playing video games or doing other activities.
It was founded in Melbourne in 2022 by billionaires Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani. Craven founded one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency casinos, Stake.com, and Kick grew its user base by luring Twitch streamers who had been sponsored by Stake on Twitch before the Amazon-owned company banned gambling advertising.
Kick states that content creators keep 95% of the revenue from their streams.
Kick has a reputation of having a lighter approach to content moderation than Twitch, but has community guidelines that do not permit “content that depicts or incites abhorrent violence including significant harm, suffering or death”.
The platform also states it does not permit content which involves displays of serious and significant self-harm.
Earlier this year, the company also announced it would only allow gambling streams from sites that use ID verification, to prevent minors from being exposed to such content.
Why was the channel not banned?
A spokesperson for Kick did not say why the Jean Pormanove channel had not been banned prior to Graven’s death.
“We are urgently reviewing the circumstances and engaging with relevant stakeholders to investigate the situation,” the spokesperson said. “Kick’s community guidelines are designed to protect creators, and we remain committed to upholding these standards across our platform.”
What has Kick said about the death?
The company has said it is cooperating with the investigation, and it was saddened about Graven’s death.
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of Jean Pormanove and extend our condolences to his family, friends and community.”
Will Kick face any repercussions?
In France, the country’s junior minister for AI and digital technology, Clara Chappaz, said the death and the violence Graven allegedly suffered “are absolutely horrific” and said a judicial investigation was under way. The matter was also referred to the digital regulator Arcom, as well as France’s portal for reporting concerns about internet content.
Given Kick is an Australian company, there may also be local implications.
A spokesperson for the eSafety commissioner said it was a “tragic case” that underscores “how the creation of more extreme content … can have devastating, real-world consequences”.
The spokesperson said “platforms like Kick need to be doing more to enforce their own terms of use and minimise harmful content and conduct in streams to protect all users of the service”.
Given the chat functionality in Kick, the platform could come under the Australian government’s under-16s social media ban from December, the spokesperson said.
Separate from that, industry codes and standards in effect also currently require companies like Kick to have systems to safeguard Australians from content, including that which depicts crime or violence without justification.
“This includes requirements to enforce their terms of use prohibiting such material, and to deal with user reports appropriately and promptly,” the spokesperson said. “eSafety will use the full range of our enforcement powers as appropriate where there is non-compliance, which can include seeking penalties of up to A$49.5m.”
Other codes aimed at addressing children’s access to high-impact violence are under consideration.
Has this happened on other services before?
There have been multiple incidents of people’s deaths being livestreamed on the internet. In 2016, a Chicago man was shot and killed while livestreaming on Facebook.
The Christchurch massacre in 2019 was livestreamed on Facebook for 17 minutes.
In 2020, a Mississippi man killed himself during a live stream on Facebook.
Following Christchurch, Meta implemented changes to detect such content and remove it, and prevent it being spread. The company trained its artificial intelligence to detect and block any future attempt to livestream a shooting spree with “police/military body cams footage,” and other violent material.
• In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
