PARIS (Reuters) -French authorities are investigating the death of a man during a live video stream on the Kick live streaming platform, where he had regularly been shown enduring violence and humiliations.
Prosecutors ordered an autopsy and opened an investigation into the death of the 46-year-old man in the village of Contes, north of Nice, on Monday.
Clara Chappaz, junior minister for AI and digital technology, said Raphael Graven, known online as Jean Pormanove, had regularly featured 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," she said on X.
Kick Francais said on X 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 said, adding that "all co-streamers who participated in this live broadcast have been banned pending the ongoing investigation".
Kick is an Australia-registered live streaming platform that shares revenue with its content creators.
Chappaz said 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 to Pharos, France's internet portal for reporting illicit internet content.
She said she asked Kick for explanations, adding: "the responsibility of online platforms for dissemination of illegal content is not optional: it is the law".
Yassin Sadouni, a lawyer for one of two co-streamers seen abusing Pormanove, said on BFM television that Pormanove had cardiovascular problems and that the violence in the videos was not real but 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 video excerpts if Pormanove voluntarily subjected himself to the violence or was forced to endure it, nor whether the action was real or staged.
(Reporting by Geert De ClercqEditing by Frances Kerry)
