An attack on a German synagogue was livestreamed on Amazon’s Twitch platform with what appears to be a head-mounted GoPro type camera.
The attacker would unsuccessfully try and gain entrance to a synagogue, before killing two people and wounding two bystanders.
The attack occurred in Halle, a city in eastern Germany. It also comes on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year for Jewish people.
In the Twitch video, which lasts about 35 minutes, the attacker shouts various anti-Semitic slogans.
According to police, one suspect has been arrested in connection with the incident. The alleged shooter and the victims have not yet been identified by authorities.
Twitch has since responded to the shooting via Twitter:
We are shocked and saddened by the tragedy that took place in Germany today, and our deepest condolences go out to all those affected.
— Twitch (@Twitch) October 9, 2019
Twitch has a zero-tolerance policy against hateful conduct, and any act of violence is taken extremely seriously. We worked with urgency to remove this content and will permanently suspend any accounts found to be posting or reposting content of this abhorrent act.
— Twitch (@Twitch) October 9, 2019
Here are the latest updates:
We’re continuing to investigate the Halle event and would like to share what we’ve uncovered. The account owner streamed this horrific act live on Twitch for 35 minutes, during which time it was viewed by approximately five people.
— Twitch (@Twitch) October 9, 2019
A recording of the stream, which was automatically generated based on the account’s settings, was viewed by approximately 2200 people in the 30 minutes before the video was flagged and removed from Twitch.
— Twitch (@Twitch) October 9, 2019
This account was created about two months prior to streaming the shooting and had attempted to stream only once before.
— Twitch (@Twitch) October 9, 2019
This video was not surfaced in any recommendations or directories; instead, our investigation suggests that people were coordinating and sharing the video via other online messaging services.
— Twitch (@Twitch) October 9, 2019
Once the video was removed, we shared the hash with an industry consortium to help prevent the proliferation of this content. We take this extremely seriously and are committed to working with industry peers, law enforcement, and any relevant parties to protect our community.
— Twitch (@Twitch) October 9, 2019
Amazon, the parent company of Twitch, has not released a statement.
The attack is not dissimilar to the Christchurch, New Zealand attack this past March, where the attacker used Facebook Live to stream the shooting.
In the wake of this incident, many Twitch users are calling for the platform to do more in enforcing its TOS. It seems more and more of these violent incidents are live streamed to social media by the unhinged individuals perpetrating them.
Accountability has to come to these platforms. For Twitch’s part, perhaps live content quality assurance teams would be an asset they could look into.
What do you make of Twitch’s response?
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