News Summary

• A Frenchman named Raphaël Graven died in his sleep during a livestreamed broadcast on the Kick platform.
• Known online as Jean Pormanove, the man appeared to have been subjected to violence and humiliation in online videos for months.
• French police are investigating the circumstances of Graven’s death.
• Representatives of Kick say they too are reviewing what happened.
• So what did happen?
• We don’t yet know – but as a livestreaming researcher I can tell you about Kick, the controversial platform where this tragic event was broadcast to the world.Kick is a video livestreaming website.
• People broadcast live video to an audience who can comment and donate money in real time.
• The content of the stream can be practically anything, but on Kick it often involves videogames, gambling, or just people hanging out.