Sites removing shooting videos faster, but not by much
NEW YORK >> Social platforms have learned to remove violent videos of extremist shootings more quickly over the past few years. It’s just not clear they’re moving quickly enough.
Police say that when a White gunman killed 10 people and wounded three others — most of them Black — in a “racially motivated violent extremist” shooting in Buffalo on Saturday, he livestreamed the attack to the gaming platform Twitch, which is owned by Amazon. It didn’t stay there long; a Twitch spokesperson said it removed the video in less than two minutes.
That’s considerably faster than the 17 minutes Facebook
needed to take down a similar video streamed by a self-described white supremacist who killed 51 people in two New Zealand mosques in 2019. But versions of the Buffalo shooting video still quickly spread to other platforms, and they haven’t always disappeared quickly.
In April, Twitter enacted a new policy on “perpetrators of violent attacks” to remove accounts maintained by “individual perpetrators of terrorist, violent extremist, or mass violent attacks,” along with tweets and other material produced by perpetrators of such attacks. On Sunday, though, clips of the video were still circulating on the platform.
One clip purporting to display a first-person view of the gunman moving through a supermarket firing at people was posted to Twitter at 8:12 a.m. Pacific time, and was still viewable more than four hours later.
Twitter said Sunday it was working to remove material related to the shooting that violates its rules. But the company added that when people share media to condemn it or provide context, sharing videos and other material from the shooter may not be a rules violation. In these cases, Twitter said it covers images or videos with a “sensitive material” cover that users have to click through in order to view them.
But later Sunday, Twitter changed course on how it was treating material related to the shooting. In a subsequent emailed statement, the company said it is “removing videos and media related to the incident” and “may remove” tweets disseminating the shooter’s writings. Earlier, the company’s statement said it “may” remove material produced by perpetrators.
“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.
At a news conference following the attack, New York Gov, Kathy Hochul said social media companies must be more vigilant in monitoring what happens on their platforms and found it inexcusable the livestream wasn’t taken down “within a second.”
“The CEOs of those companies need to be held accountable and assure all of us that they’re taking every step humanly possible to be able to monitor this information,” Hochul said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “How these depraved ideas are fermenting on social media — it’s spreading like a virus now.”
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.”