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New Jersey's Acting Attorney General has launched a probe into Twitch and Discord to see if the platforms broke laws on hateful and extremist content following a recent mass shooting in Buffalo. In an announcement published Monday, New Jersey's Acting Attorney General Matthew Platkin wrote that the purpose of the investigation was to find out if policy or moderation failures allowed the platforms to become vectors for spreading extremist content, especially among young people. The investigation follows a similar one launched by New York Attorney General Letitia James last week.
The 18-year-old who has been charged with shooting 13 people at a Tops supermarket, killing 10—used Discord to spread his white supremacist ideology, and broadcast the attack live on Twitch. Across a swath of posts online, he credited racist memes and discussions on 4chan with inspiring him to specifically target Black people for deadly violence. Eleven of the Buffalo shooting victims were Black. The events of May 14 have been called a "hate crime" and "an act of racially motivated violent extremism," by Attorney General Merrick Garland, and are being investigated by the Department of Justice. The suspect, who Engadget is choosing not to name so as not to further add to the infamy he appeared to seek, has plead not guilty to first-degree murder.
"These social media platforms have enormous reach, especially with young people, and have shown themselves to be staging grounds for hateful and extremist content that may radicalize children and others," said Acting AG Platkin. "New Jersey has
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