Governor Kathy Hochul and State Attorney General Letitia James have jointly released a report saying the Buffalo Tops Market shooter became radicalized through exposure to several online platforms including 4-chan, 8kun, Reddit, Discord and Twitch.
Payton Gendron is accused of shooting ten black people at the Tops in Buffalo May 14. The Attorney General’s investigators conclude Gendron viewed “voluminous amounts of racist and violent content” that led him to prepare and execute his attack. He broadcast what he was doing via livestream. The report says the anonymity offered by sites like 4-chan and their refusal to moderate their content makes these platforms breeding grounds for racist hate speech and radicalization.
James and Hochul are calling on state lawmakers to restrict livestreaming of violent events, reform laws that protect online platforms from liability for what their members post and increase transparency for online platforms in their content monitoring.