It is reported that discord provided more information on how the gunmen who opened fire at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York over the weekend used their services before the tragic violence It was revealed that the gunman was Payton Gendron, 18, who was charged with first-degree murder in the mass shooting.
The incident resulted in 10 deaths and 3 injuries. In the month before the attack on buffalo tops grocery store, Gendron studied and selected as many places as possible to hurt blacks. He used discord to record his plan, which was very detailed.
According to discord, the suspected gunman created a private, invitation only server that he used as a "personal diary chat record". There were no other members of the server until 30 minutes before the attack, a small group of people received an invitation and joined.
"Previously, our records showed that no one else saw the diary chat records in this private server," a discord spokesman told techcrunch.
Discord is a text and voice chat application known for its large public information room, but it also allows users to create private, invitation only servers. The suspect recorded his violent and racist views in an updated discord server (sharing a user name with the twitter channel he used to broadcast the shooting live). In addition, he also explained in detail how he would carry out the logistics of the mass shooting, including the equipment he would use, his shopping trip before the shooting and his plan for the day.
Although we don't know which discord servers Gendron is still active on, he mentioned his activities on the app in his chat record. "I didn't even think until now that people in my discipline group might be raided by ATF and FBI agents," he wrote Although discord was a digital diary of his subsequent atrocities, he also compiled a nearly 200 page document on his beliefs, weapons and plans to commit violence in Google Documents.
In early May, he expressed concern that Google might find violent plans in the messages he sent on private discord servers. "Well, I'm a little nervous because Google staff will see my manifesto, his mother. Why do I put it on Google Docs? I should have some other solutions," he wrote. Unfortunately, these concerns are unfounded. It is reported that Google deleted the file for violating its terms of service after the shooting.
The suspect broadcast the shooting live on twitter. In addition, he spent some time on / pol / on 4chan, a notorious sub message board full of racism, misogyny and extremism. Unlike mainstream social networks such as discord, 4chan does not conduct any active content audit and only deletes illegal content when needed. In the discord chat record consulted by techcrunch, the gunman pointed out that he "really became a racist" after he met the idea of white supremacy on 4chan.
Five years ago, discord was involved in the Charlottesville united the right rally, a public gathering of white supremacists and other far right extremists that eventually led to the death of an anti demonstrator. Participants and organizers of the rally gathered on a private discord server to plan the day's event and discuss the logistics of the event in Charlottesville. The company responded by cracking down on some servers hosting extremism, but insisted that it did not read information on private servers.
Like reddit, most of discord's practical management comes from the community moderators of its chat rooms. Like most social media companies, discord relies on the integration of automatic content scanning and human moderators. Last year, the company acquired sentropy, an artificial intelligence software company responsible for detecting and deleting online hatred and harassment.
In the years following the deadly violence in Charlottesville, discord successfully sought to distance itself from the far right extremists and white supremacists who once made the social network their home. Recently, discord has also opened some distance between its current brand and its origin as a popular gamer chat application, reshaping itself as an attractive center of a huge and booming online community.
"We express our deepest sympathy to the victims and their families. Hatred has no place in discord, and we are committed to combating violence and extremism," a discord spokesman said of the buffalo tragedy. At present, the company is assisting the law enforcement department in conducting an ongoing investigation.