Online hate under scrutiny after Buffalo shooter streamed massacre on Twitch

The Buffalo shooting has focused attention on the role of Twitch, the gaming platform used by the gunman to broadcast a live stream of the massacre, amid renewed calls for tighter regulation of social media platforms.

Twitch allows creators, many with millions of followers, to stream themselves playing video games, chatting with fans, or simply going about their daily lives.

The Buffalo suspect, a self-confessed white supremacist who allegedly shot 11 Black and two white victims, killing 10 people, in what authorities said was a racially motivated hate crime, used a Twitch channel to livestream the assault from a helmet camera.

Amazon-owned Twitch said it took down the video within two minutes of the violence starting, but by that time it was already being shared elsewhere including on Facebook and Twitter. In a statement issued to the New York Times, Angela Hession, Twitch’s vice-president of trust and safety, said the site’s reaction was a “very strong response time considering the challenges of live content moderation, and shows good progress”.