Police say that when a white gunman killed 10 people and wounded three others Saturday in a “racially motivated violent extremist” shooting in Buffalo, he live-streamed the attack to the gaming platform Twitch.
“We believe the hateful and discriminatory views promoted in content produced by perpetrators are harmful for society and that their dissemination should be limited in order to prevent perpetrators from publicizing their message,” Twitter said in a statement.
Hochul said she holds companies responsible for “fomenting” racist views. “People are sharing these ideas. They’re sharing videos of other attacks. And they’re all copycat. They all want to be the next great white hope that’s going to inspire the next attack,” she said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” In Europe, a senior European Union official with oversight of digital affairs for the 27-nation bloc said Sunday that the livestreaming on Twitch showed the need for administrators to continue working with online platforms so that any future broadcasts of killings can be quickly shut down.
“The platforms have done a lot to get to the root of this. They are not there yet,” she added. “But they keep working and we will keep working.”