Online death of abused French streamer was not result of trauma, prosecutor says

By Geert De Clercq

PARIS (Reuters) -A French video streamer who died during a livestream after days of abuse by other streamers did not die as a result of trauma or the intervention of a third party, court authorities said.

France has been rocked by the death of 46-year-old Raphael Graven, known online as Jean Pormanove, who died during a livestream on Monday after enduring several days of violence and humiliation broadcast on platform Kick.

The prosecutor of Nice in southern France, near where Graven died, said an autopsy showed no trace of traumatic injuries that could explain the death, and that the probable causes of death therefore appear to be medical or toxicological in origin.

Further analyses have been ordered to determine these causes, the prosecutor said, adding that Graven had cardiac issues and that he was undergoing medical treatment for his thyroid gland.

In an interview with broadcaster franceinfo on Friday, Clara Chappaz, a junior minister for AI and digital technology, said that during some of the videos Graven can be heard saying that he wants the abuse to stop and that he wants to call the police.

"The entire country is in shock about what has happened ... We live in a world where reality has surpassed fiction, where we can see someone dying on a TV channel and people can watch this type of video with hours and hours of humiliation," she said.

She denounced what she called a "digital Wild West" and lashed out at Australian-owned Kick for insufficient content moderation.

"This three-year-old platform is clearly very disconnected with what is really going on," she said, adding that if inquiries show Kick fell short of online content standards, there would be "sanctions", which she did not specify.

She said that French digital and audiovisual communication regulator Arcom has launched an investigation into the case and if it became clear that France's regulatory framework was insufficient, regulations would be tightened.

Kick Francais has said it will cooperate with authorities and is undertaking a review of its French content.

(Reporting by GV De Clercq; editing by Mark Heinrich)