CThe video of the Buffalo shooting has now been leaked on the internet days after the carnage sent shockwaves across the world. The Amazon-owned social media platform Twitch coming under fire for not removing the video quickly.
The shooter, a White supremacist, had streamed the carnage LIVE on Twitch. Even though Twitch, a platform popular with gamers, said that it had taken down the video, it had allowed many to download the video to share it later on other social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.
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Users began to share links to the video on these platforms within days of the barbaric act. New York Times reported it had stumbled upon a clip from the original video, which reportedly bore a watermark, suggesting it had been recorded with free screen-recording software.
The NYT report added that the video was posted on a site called Streamable and viewed more than three million times before it was removed.
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The same was also shared on Facebook and Twitter hundreds of times within hours of the shooting.
One Twitter user Steve Anderson informed on the microblogging site that anyone wishing to watch the video could send him a private message.
This was not the first time a terrorist had streamed his act LIVE on social media. In 2019, the terrorist, who caused carnage at a mosque in Christchurch, had broadcast his act LIVE on Facebook.
Angela Hession, Twitch’s vice president of trust and safety, said that even though her platform reacted with lightning speed to remove the video of the mass shooting in Buffalo, she added that her site was working with the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism as well as other social platforms to prevent the spread of the video.
At least 10 people, mostly Black Americans, were killed in Buffalo shooting. The 18-year-old terrorist was later arrested.
US federal agency FBI called the shooting as an act of ‘violent extremism’ and refused to term it a terrorist act since the perpetrator wasn’t a Muslim.