Buffalo shooter ‘radicalized’ through fringe online platforms, report finds

ALBANY, N.Y. — Attorney General Tish James and Gov. Kathy Hochul released a report Tuesday on the role that online platforms played in the racially motivated shooting at a Buffalo supermarket earlier this year that killed 10 people and wounded three.

The report concluded “that fringe online platforms, like 4chan, radicalized the shooter; livestreaming platforms, like Twitch, were weaponized to publicize and encourage copycat violent attacks; and a lack of oversight, transparency, and accountability of these platforms allowed hateful and extremist views to proliferate online, leading to radicalization and violence.”

Background: After the shooting, Hochul announced new actions to strengthen gun laws in New York and quell the spread of white supremacy online. Part of that was a referral to James’ office to study the role that online platforms played in the 18-year-old shooter’s reported white supremacist ideology before the shooting in the largely Black community.

Investigators reviewed thousands of pages of documents, social media content and policies practiced by the platforms.

James' office said it subpoenaed several platforms used by the shooter, including 4chan, 8kun, Reddit, Discord, Twitch and YouTube, and other online platforms where graphic content of the shooting or the shooter’s manifesto appeared, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Rumble.

Payton Gendron was indicted after the May 14 shooting. Police said he drove about three hours from his home in Conklin in New York's Southern Tier with the intent to kill as many Black people as possible. He livestreamed the shooting from a helmet-mounted camera.

What’s next: Hochul and James are now calling for reforms at both state and federal levels to combat online extremism.

They want state legislation that would criminalize graphic images or videos created by a perpetrator of a homicide and penalize individuals who reshare or repost those same images or videos. They are also recommending changes to Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act to require companies “take reasonable steps to prevent unlawful violent criminal content from appearing on their platforms.”

James said on Tuesday she met with the victims’ families to share the findings of the report.

“The tragic shooting in Buffalo exposed the real dangers of unmoderated online platforms that have become breeding grounds for white supremacy,” James said in a statement.