The man accused of killing 10 people in a racist shooting in Buffalo allegedly describes himself as a White supremacist in a document

In the wake of Saturday’s mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, Big Tech platforms are struggling to stop the spread of a video of the attack filmed by the suspect and a document allegedly also produced by him where he outlines his beliefs. 

Platforms have tried to improve how they respond to the sharing of this kind of content since the mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019, which was also streamed live online.In the 24 hours after that attack, Facebook said it removed 1.5 million copies of the video.

Part of the challenge facing platforms now is what appears to be users posting a deluge of copies of the Buffalo video and document. 

The attack was streamed live on Twitch, a video streaming service owned by Amazon that is particularly popular with gamers. Twitch said it removed the video two minutes after the violence started, but the video had already been downloaded by other users. 

The video has since been shared across major social media platforms and also posted to more obscure video hosting sites. 

Spokespersons for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Reddit all told CNN that they had banned the sharing of the video on their sites and are working to identify and remove copies of it. But the companies appear to be struggling to contain the spread. 

CNN observed a link to a copy of the video circulating on Facebook on Sunday night. Facebook included a warning that the link violated its community standards but still allowed users to click through and watch the video. 

The Washington Post reported a link to another copy of the video had been shared 46,000 times on Facebook before it was removed. 

That video was hosted on a less well-known video service called Streamable and was only removed after it had reportedly been viewed more than 3 million times.  

A spokesperson for Streamable told CNN the company was “working diligently” to remove copies of the video “expeditiously.” The spokesperson did not respond when asked how one video had reached millions of views before it was removed.  

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, on Saturday designated the event as a “terrorist attack,” which triggered the company’s internal teams to identify and remove the account of the suspect, as well as to begin removing copies of the video and document and links to them on other sites, according to a company spokesperson. 

The company added the video and document to an internal database that helps automatically detect and remove copies if they are reuploaded. Meta has also banned content that praises or supports the attacker, the spokesperson said.