PARIS (Reuters) — French authorities are investigating the loss of life of a person throughout a reside video stream on the Kick reside streaming platform, the place he had repeatedly been proven enduring violence and humiliations.
Prosecutors ordered an post-mortem and opened an investigation into the loss of life of the 46-year-old man within the village of Contes, north of Good, on Monday.
Clara Chappaz, junior minister for AI and digital know-how, mentioned Raphael Graven, recognized on-line as Jean Pormanove, had repeatedly featured in movies on Kick, the place he was bodily assaulted or humiliated by co-streamers as viewers watched reside.
“The death of Jean Pormanove and the violence he suffered are absolutely horrific,” she mentioned on X.
Kick Francais mentioned on X it will cooperate with authorities and was enterprise a evaluate of its French content material.
“Our priority is to protect creators and ensure a safer environment on Kick,” it mentioned, including that “all co-streamers who participated in this live broadcast have been banned pending the ongoing investigation”.
Kick is an Australia-registered reside streaming platform that shares income with its content material creators.
Chappaz mentioned a judicial investigation is underway, that she had referred the matter to digital and audiovisual communication regulator Arcom and that she had filed a report back to Pharos, France’s web portal for reporting illicit web content material.
She mentioned she requested Kick for explanations, including: “the responsibility of online platforms for dissemination of illegal content is not optional: it is the law”.
Yassin Sadouni, a lawyer for one in all two co-streamers seen abusing Pormanove, mentioned on BFM tv that Pormanove had cardiovascular issues and that the violence within the movies was not actual however acted.
“All those scenes are just staged, they follow a script,” he mentioned.
French media have proven excerpts of hours-long movies throughout which Pormanove is seen struggling blows, insults, strangulation, dousing with paint and oil and being shot at with a paintball gun.
It was not clear from the video excerpts if Pormanove voluntarily subjected himself to the violence or was pressured to endure it, nor whether or not the motion was actual or staged.
