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Media Platforms Still Struggling to Remove Violent Content

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Media Platforms Still Struggling to Remove Violent Content
18 May 2022
min read

News Synopsis

The release of footage by the suspect in the Buffalo, New York implementation, shows that social media platforms are still fighting to prevent their platforms from being used to disseminate violent and extremist videos.

Saturday's supermarket shooting, which left 10 people dead and 3 injured, was streamed on Twitch, a website owned by Amazon.com Inc that specializes in live streaming.

Meta Platforms Inc, Twitter, and Youtube representatives have said that they have been working to remove all posts related to Buffalo shooting as soon as possible, that violate their policies. 

Eleven of the thirteen victims are black, and authorities are investigating the attack as a possible hate crime. Prior to the shooting, 18-year-old Payton Gendron said he chose Twitch because of free access to the platform and posted an online document about his plans.

Many of the major social media platforms provide the ability to broadcast live video from their smartphones and computers with little or no restrictions. This allowed users to stream violence in real time and quickly post and repost stream records, which is against platform policies.

The pitfalls of live-streaming technology were particularly scrutinized three years ago after a mass shooting in 2019 at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 51 people. Later that year, an attack near the synagogue that killed two people in Halle, Germany, struck Twitch.