New York governor demands social media platforms do more to stop terror attack livestreams

Twitch logo
(Image credit: NurPhoto (Getty Images))

New York governor Kathy Hochul is calling on social media companies to do more to prevent terrorists and mass murderers from broadcasting attacks on their platforms. The call comes in the wake of a mass shooting that took place on May 14 in Buffalo, New York, in which a heavily-armed white supremacist livestreamed the murders of ten people and wounded three more at a supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood

According to a New York Times report, the shooter planned out aspects of his rampage, with notes like "continue writing manifesto" and "test livestream function before the actual attack," on a private Discord server. The attack itself was livestreamed on Twitch.

Discord told the Times that it is cooperating with law enforcement authorities investigating the shooter's use of Discord, but would not comment further. 

"We extend our deepest sympathies to the victims and their families, and we will do everything we can to assist law enforcement in the investigation," the company said.

For its part, a Twitch representative said the livestreaming platform "has a zero-tolerance policy against violence of any kind and works swiftly to respond to all incidents." 

"The user has been indefinitely suspended from our service, and we are taking all appropriate action, including monitoring for any accounts rebroadcasting this content," Twitch said. 

The service also noted that the shooter's Twitch channel was taken offline less than two minutes after he began his rampage.

This is not the first time a premeditated hate crime has been broadcast on the internet. A 2019 attack on a synagogue in Germany, in which two people were killed, was also broadcast on Twitch, while attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, which left 51 people dead, were livestreamed on Facebook. According to Australia's Online Hate Prevention Institute, the Buffalo shooter wrote in his manifesto that he was inspired by the Christchurch attacker's livestream, which he said introduced him to the "great replacement theory" and other racist conspiracy theories embraced by both shooters.

A sub-two-minute response time strikes me as quite good for on-the-fly moderation of a service with over 80,000 live channels at any given time , but New York Governor Kathy Hochul demands that social media platforms do more to prevent these streams from being shared.

"There's a feeding frenzy on social media platforms where hate festers more hate, that has to stop," Hochul said during a briefing after the shooting. "These outlets must be more vigilant in monitoring social media content. And certainly the fact that this act of barbarism, this execution of innocent human beings, could be live streamed on social media platforms and not taken down within a second, says to me that there is a responsibility out there. 

"We're going to continue to work on this and make sure that those who provide these platforms have a moral and ethical, and I hope to have a legal responsibility to ensure that such hate cannot populate these sites, because this is the result."

Hochul added that her government is also "going to be preparing our state for what could be a Supreme Court decision that allows people to carry concealed weapons."

I've reached out to Twitch and Discord for further comment, and will update if I receive a reply.

TOPICS
Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.

Read more
The streamer Emiru gives the peace sign to camera.
Three women livestreaming on Twitch harassed by man who then goes for them while making repeated death threats: 'This happens off-camera to women all the time'
Rainbow Six Siege: Rauora key art
Ubisoft apologizes for 'oversight' in Rainbow Six Siege's upcoming new operator after people notice the New Zealand-born character's birthday is the same date as the 2019 Christchurch mosque killings
HasanAbi
Twitch streamer Hasan Piker suspended after saying Republicans would 'kill Rick Scott' if they really cared about Medicare fraud
PORTSMOUTH, UNITED KINGDOM - OCTOBER 20: A man smokes a cigarette while he looks at a smart phone screen on October 20, 2024 in Portsmouth, England. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)
Meta says sorry for turning Instagram into a horror show of violence, gore, dead bodies, and other graphic content that 'should not have been recommended'
Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Meta Platforms Inc., during the Meta Connect event in Menlo Park, California, US, on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. Meta Platforms Inc. debuted its first pair of augmented reality glasses, devices that show a combined view of the digital and physical worlds, a key step in Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg's goal of one day offering a hands-free alternative to the smartphone. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Facebook and Instagram are ditching fact-checkers in favor of a Community Notes system inspired by X: 'Fact-checkers have just been too politically biased,' Zuckerberg says
Ryan Gosling looking worse for wear looking up lit by purple light
Meta wants AI characters to fill up Facebook and Instagram 'kind of in the same way accounts do,' but also had to delete a humiliating first run of its official bots
Latest in Platforms
A screenshot from game Mudborne of a little humanoid frog in a marsh
Five new Steam games you probably missed (March 24, 2025)
midnight murder club
Five new Steam games you probably missed (March 17, 2025)
Screenshot of Children of Clay showing a mysterious clay model
Five new Steam games you probably missed (March 10, 2025)
discord
Brace yourself for Discord to get worse: Reports swirl that the company is in talks with bankers about opening itself up to shareholders
The Spy from Team Fortress 2 holds up a folder with an accusatory expression.
Steam users react ecstatically to update that lets them access their heaving game notes via the web, also it fixes Monster Hunter Wilds video recording
HasanAbi
Twitch streamer Hasan Piker suspended after saying Republicans would 'kill Rick Scott' if they really cared about Medicare fraud
Latest in News
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway
Image of Cersei Lanniser from Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Steam early access trailer
A new Game of Thrones RPG is coming to Steam today with a cast of 'familiar faces,' which is good because it's really the only way to tell it's a GoT game at all
The new Prime Asset featured in the upcoming update for the Outlast Trials.
The Outlast Trials puts its already paranoid players under surveillance for a time-limited story event