Relatives of victims of racist Buffalo shooting sue social media companies

The relatives of several victims of the racist shooting that occurred almost a year ago in a Buffalo supermarket (NY), where ten black people were murdered, sued this Friday the main social media companies of USA and accused them of contributing to the radicalization of the author.

The claim, filed in the New York State Supreme Courtargues that the author, payton gendronan 18-year-old white man, “He was radicalized by the algorithms” of the social networks that he used and that fed him with “increasingly racist, anti-Semitic and instigating content”.

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The relatives of three victims and one survivor – there were three injured – are supported by three legal organizations, which indicated in a note that Gendron broadcast the attack live on the social network twitch and that his ability to divulge it was “a key factor to convince him” To continue.

Technology companies are accused in the lawsuit Goal, Snap, alphabet, discord, Reddit and Amazon -which operates Twitch-, three companies from the arms business involved in the attack and the parents of the author.

Gendron was sentenced this past February to life imprisonment for a crime of domestic terrorism and ten for murder after pleading guilty.

On the day of the sentence, he said he felt sorry, and his lawyers considered that the racist hatred that motivated him came from social networks and that the crime was facilitated by easy access to assault weapons.

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The complainants point out that the algorithms of the networks “maximized” Gendron’s interaction with those platforms and generated “the corresponding billing for advertising to companies”in addition to providing “training, access to equipment and knowledge to plan and execute the massacre”.

The lawsuit sheds light on the involvement of the shooter in the networks and maintains that he used discord to create a “detailed plan to kill black people”with a deep analysis of the weapons that he would use, and for months he kept a record of his development.

On the day of the attack, he invited other users to a chat room discord in which he had put a link to a live broadcast on twitcha personal statement and a diary that he had written “to justify their violence and inspire future shootings”.

The broadcast of twitch it lasted about 24 minutes before being suspended by the social network itself, and the last two minutes covered almost the entire duration of the shooting, which was seen by two dozen users, while the video was later published on other online platforms. add the note.

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Source: Elcomercio

jack

I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.