French authorities are investigating the death of a man during a live video stream on the Kick platform, where he had regularly been shown enduring violence and humiliation.
Prosecutors ordered an autopsy and opened an investigation into the death of the man, 46, in the village of Contes, north of Nice, on Monday.
France’s junior minister for AI and digital technology, Clara Chappaz, said Raphael Graven, known online as Jean Pormanove, had featured regularly in videos on Kick, where he was physically assaulted or humiliated by co-streamers as viewers watched live.
“The death of Jean Pormanove and the violence he suffered are absolutely horrific,” Chappaz wrote on X.
Kick Français said it would cooperate with authorities and was undertaking a review of its French content.
“Our priority is to protect creators and ensure a safer environment on Kick,” it wrote on X. “All co-streamers who participated in this live broadcast have been banned pending the ongoing investigation.”
Kick is a live-streaming platform registered in Australia that shares revenue with its content creators.
Chappaz said a judicial investigation was under way and that she had referred the matter to digital and audiovisual communication regulator Arcom and filed a report to Pharos, France’s internet portal for reporting illicit internet content.
She also said she had asked Kick for explanations. “The responsibility of online platforms for dissemination of illegal content is not optional, it is the law,” she said.
Yassin Sadouni, a lawyer for one of two co-streamers seen abusing Pormanove, told BFM television the victim had cardiovascular problems and that the violence in the videos was acted. “All those scenes are just staged, they follow a script,” he said.
French media have shown excerpts of hours-long videos during which Pormanove is seen suffering blows, insults, strangulation, dousing with paint and oil and being shot at with a paintball gun.
It was not clear from the excerpts whether Pormanove had subjected himself to the violence voluntarily or was forced to endure it, nor whether the action was real or staged.
