France to sue video platform Kick for 'negligence' after streamer's death

The French government will sue the Australian video platform Kick for alleged negligence after the death of a user who livestreamed videos of himself being subjected to violence.

Raphaël Graven, 46, also known as Jean Pormanove, died earlier this month in Nice during a broadcast on Kick that had been running for more than 12 days.

Graven was known for streaming extreme challenges, and footage shared on social media showed him being slapped, punched and strangled — among other forms of abuse — by several men during the broadcast. The videos could not be independently verified by Euronews.

French media reported that the broadcast was interrupted soon after Graven's co-streamers found him unconscious on a bed. A postmortem carried out last Thursday found that Graven's death was not the result of trauma or the actions of a third party.

Clara Chappaz, France's digital affairs and artificial intelligence (AI) minister, said on Tuesday that Kick had failed to block "dangerous content" and accused the platform of breaking a 2004 law regulating online content.

"I have been fighting to bring order to the digital Wild West. Kick is my battle, and I am taking the platform to court," she said.

Separately on Tuesday, Paris prosecutors announced that they had launched an investigation into Kick. The probe will examine whether the platform knowingly broadcast "videos of deliberate attacks on personal integrity", the prosecutors said.

It will also look into whether Kick complied with the European Union's Digital Services Act, which requires platforms to report any risk of danger to life or personal safety.

In a statement released last week, Kick said it was deeply saddened by Graven's death and offered its condolences to his family, friends and community.

"We are committed to cooperating fully with the authorities in this process. We are undertaking a comprehensive review of our French-language content," it said. The platform has not publicly commented about Tuesday's developments in Paris.

Kick is a video streaming platform similar to Amazon's Twitch, but with a much more permissive moderation policy that allows gambling activities, sexually suggestive content or content involving humiliation or violence to be broadcast without automatic sanctions.