The Buffalo shooting live stream was a stark reminder of how extremists can exploit gaming platforms to promote violence.
The suspect who allegedly carried out the attack in Buffalo, New York, grocery store mounted a camera to his helmet and livestreamed on Twitch as he shot 13 people, killing 10.
Alex Newhouse, deputy director at the Middlebury Institute Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism, points out that the violence is not linked to the games themselves. And extremists have also realized that these platforms often lag behind bigger social media platforms in terms of content moderation, Newhouse says.
“It happens through other ways as well. We've seen it happening where groups within the platform will interact with one another to make it look like they are a bigger organization than they actually are, which gives the feeling to potential new recruits of being important. There's almost sort of like an organic magnetism towards those types of networks as well.”“They are investing in a lot of counter-radicalization, a lot of disruption enforcement mechanisms.