Hi Friend,
Last week, Muslim Advocates, and a condition of leading civil rights organizations, met with Attorney General Merrick Garland. At the meeting, we directly asked him to open a Department of Justice investigation into Facebook and other social media companies for failing to prevent footage of the Buffalo shooting from going viral on their platform.
We need you to amplify the demand: Send an email to AG Garland and ask him to hold social companies accountable for failing to counter violent white nationalism.
Not only was the Buffalo attack planned on Discord and live-streamed on Twitch, but according to the Washington Post, just one link to a copy of the Buffalo footage “received more than 500 comments and 46,000 shares” and Facebook “did not remove it for more than 10 hours.” And according to the New York Times, Facebook posts linking to a copy of the video “generated more than 43,000 interactions” and “Facebook recommended certain search terms about the Buffalo gunman video noting that they were 'popular now' on the platform.” TikTok users also posted videos urging their followers to watch the Buffalo footage on Twitter.
After a white nationalist killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, we demanded that Facebook and other major social media companies take action to stop the live-streamed footage of that rampage from going viral and they promised to enact reforms. That was THREE YEARS ago. Now, after another white nationalist directly inspired by Christchurch killed 10 people at a supermarket in a Black neighborhood in Buffalo, NY, that footage is again going viral on social media. Especially after Christchurch, social media companies have no excuse for why this happened again.
We need accountability now. No more excuses from social media companies: Demand the DOJ investigate why they failed to prevent white nationalist propaganda from going viral.
The white nationalist “Great Replacement Theory” — that Jews are orchestrating a replacement of white Americans with Black and brown immigrants — has fueled violence against Muslims in Christchurch, Jews at synagogues in Poway and Pittsburgh, Latinos in El Paso, and now, Black people in Buffalo. Moreover, this racist, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, lie is being parroted on cable news by Tucker Carlson, other far-right pundits and even elected politicians. All this is bad enough; the last thing we need is this racist, violent propaganda spreading on Facebook, Twitter and TikTok.
Social media companies — particularly de facto monopolies like Facebook — have a public responsibility to take down content that promotes violence and prevent footage of violence from being spread on their platforms. The spread of the Christchurch and Buffalo footage is a matter of urgent public safety and the social media companies have proven that they won’t protect us.
It is long past time for the government to step in and force social media companies to actually take meaningful action to stop the spread of white nationalist hate.
We need your help to amplify the pressure. Send an email to Attorney General Merrick Garland and ask him to investigate social media companies.
In solidarity,
Eric Naing
Communications Director, Muslim Advocates
