Online Platform 4chan Helped Radicalize Supermarket Mass Shooter, AG Finds

Online forums like 4chan are being partly blamed for radicalizing the man who carried out a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, earlier in the year.

On Tuesday, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced on Twitter several key findings of her office's investigation into the deadly incident. On May 14, 18-year-old Payton S. Gendron opened fire at a Tops Friendly Supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo, killing 10 people and injuring 3 more.

"In May, my office launched an investigation into the online platforms used by the shooter at Tops Market in Buffalo to plan, promote, and stream his terror attack," James tweeted. "Today, we're releasing our report and calling for reforms to combat online extremism and violence."

Among her list of findings, James said that "fringe online platforms" played a role in radicalizing the young shooter. She specifically cited 4chan, a notorious online imageboard known for its frequently toxic culture and predilection toward bigoted content. The board also lacks any sort of proper moderation, allowing unseemly content to flourish.

"The anonymity offered by 4chan and platforms like it, and their refusal to moderate content in any meaningful way ensures that these platforms are and remain breeding grounds for racist hate speech and radicalization," the report states.

James further singled out live-streaming platforms like Twitch, which her office's investigation found "were weaponized to promote this violent act of terror and encourage copycat attacks." Gendron attempted to use Twitch, one of the biggest platforms in the live-streaming industry, to broadcast his shooting, but the site shut down the stream after two minutes.

The attorney general also said that "online platforms allow hateful, extremist views to rapidly spread." She did not single out a particular platform or note one that had an impact on Gendron. Numerous major platforms, including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, have grappled with hateful and dangerous content in the last several years.

Continuing her statement, James called on New York Governor Kathy Hochul to take action on the issues contributing to extremism and violence online.

"New York and other states must pass laws that criminalize graphic images or videos created by a person carrying out an attack and penalize resharing or reposting that same content," James wrote. "Federal laws must change to require companies to take steps to prevent violent criminal content from being shared on their platforms. Companies need to identify and stop violence from being livestreamed before it can be shared."

Hochul issued a referral to James earlier in the year to investigate how online platforms contributed to the Buffalo shooting, which ultimately led to Tuesday's report. In response to the attorney general's office's findings, the Democrat governor called the report a "chilling account of factors that contributed to this incident and, importantly, a road map toward greater accountability." The matter is especially personal for Hochul, as Buffalo is her hometown.

Newsweek reached out to Hochul's office for further comment.