POLITICO has reached out to Kick for comment. The platform responded to the death of Raphaël Graven, known by his streaming alias Jean Pormanove, on Wednesday by sending its “sincere condolences” to his family and committing to “cooperate fully with the authorities” in a post on X.
France’s digital ministry, French digital regulator Arcom and Kick have all been the subject of intense scrutiny since Graven died during a 12-day-long livestream.
Though exactly what killed the 46-year-old remains under investigation, Graven was repeatedly belittled and subjected to physical abuse throughout the marathon livestream and in other videos posted to Kick in recent months.
French authorities had been alerted to the instance of Graven, an army veteran, being mistreated on livestreams as early as December after a report from French investigative outlet Mediapart. As part of its investigation, Mediapart reached out to Arcom and to Chappaz’s office, but did not receive an immediate response from the ministry.
Prosecutors in the southern French city of Nice opened an investigation shortly after the Mediapart story was published. The case appeared to fall apart after prosecutors there said that both the purported victims and perpetrators denied that any crimes had been committed, but the statement from Paris prosecutors said that the affair remains under the jurisdiction of their Nice counterparts and that the two offices were working together.