

We asked Facebook about this particular incident, but they did not provide additional details. A representative for Facebook told TechCrunch that it added multiple versions of the video, as well as the shooter’s racist writings, to a database of violating content, which helps the platform identify, remove and block such content. The video wasn’t taken down until three hours after posting, when it had already been viewed over a thousand times.

TechCrunch encountered the video an hour after it had been uploaded and reported it immediately. Facebook said that it is also removing copies of the shooter’s racist screed and content that praises him.īut when we searched a term as simple as “footage of buffalo shooting” on Facebook, one of the first results featured a 54-second screen recording of the terrorist’s footage. The company told TechCrunch that this was a mistake, adding that it has teams working around the clock to take down videos of the shooting, as well as links to the video hosted on other sites. On Facebook, some users who flagged the video were notified that the content did not violate its rules.

Even though Twitch removed the video two minutes after the violence began, it was still too late - now, gruesome footage of the terrorist attack is openly circulating on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, even after the companies have vowed to take down the video. The eighteen-year-old white supremacist shooter livestreamed his attack on Twitch, the Amazon-owned video game streaming platform. Ten people were murdered this weekend in a racist attack on a Buffalo, New York supermarket.
