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Discord had a major role in this shooters radicalization. The logs are available on KF, you won't gain anything from reading them, but I'll tell you that he'd b

Discord had a major role in this shooters radicalization. The logs are available on KF, you won't gain anything from reading them, but I'll tell you that he'd been talking about this plan for a long time and that other individuals were extremely encouraging. There's a big difference, IMO, between watching low-budget white nationalism content on YouTube and having long, daily, hate-filled discussions with people who share your anger. People like to scapegoat 4chan when these things happen, presumably because it's at the top of the pipeline for a lot of these people, but in this specific case the shooter barely used image boards and was much more active on reddit and Discord.

jbullock35 4y ago
> People like to scapegoat 4chan when these things happen, presumably because it's at the top of the pipeline for a lot of these people, but in this specific case the shooter barely used image boards From the shooter's diary: > "I only really turned racist when 4chan started giving me facts that they were intellectually and emotionally inferior," he wrote on May 5, referring to Black people. Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/buffalo-shooting-supermarket-673-page-diary-reveals-suspects-descent-into-racist-extremism-11652814938 https://www.wsj.com/articles/buffalo-shooting-supermarket-67.... See https://archive.ph/0Nnj7 https://archive.ph/0Nnj7 for a non-paywalled version.
- prepend 4y ago
  I don’t think shooter diaries are terribly authoritative when the shooter is crazy. We definitely have an unreliable narrator. If the goal is to prevent future shooters, I think log files of the shooters behavior is more important than what they say is most important.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - guelo 4y ago
    There's no evidence that the shooter is crazy.
    - phdelightful 4y ago
      Don’t you have to be at least a little bit more detached from reality than the median person (“crazy”) to shoot up a supermarket? I don’t think crazy in a blank check to get away with whatever you want, you can definitely make yourself crazy in entirely foreseeable and avoidable ways that are your responsibility. This can still render you unreliable when it comes to your own motivations.
      - flakovertarget 4y ago
        > Don’t you have to be at least a little bit more detached from reality than the median person (“crazy”) to shoot up a supermarket? I would say, "yes," but this is crazy in some type of modern-day social sense of the term. If we're to consider the long, rich history of human violence it looks a bit pedestrian. He's not a member of your tribe, your tribe attacks his tribe, he attacks yours. He played by an older, darker, less civilized rule-book. So he's not "seeing things schizo crazy" and so in some sense, no, he is not crazy.
        phdelightful 4y ago
        I take your point. I think I was just reacting to various flavors of “he’s not crazy” as having a potentially normalizing effect but that may not be what was intended, or what other readers focused on.
        flakovertarget 4y ago
        > as having a potentially normalizing effect I find virtually all mainstream discourse around mass-casualty attacks to be either normalizing or to just simply sweep the issue under the rug and ignore it. There is no deep discussion on the topics, just further fiddling.
        4y ago
  - jl6 4y ago
    His motivations may be horrible and his logic may be flawed but that doesn’t make him crazy.
    - wmeredith 4y ago
      Good point, but it's not like there's a diagnostic definition of "crazy" anyway. Replace that language with "deluded, ignorant, and sociopathic" and the statement you replied to makes more sense.
      - flakovertarget 4y ago
        > Replace that language with "deluded, ignorant, and sociopathic" I really wouldn't call him any of those terms, he simply has a completely different "tribe," value system, and morality than yours. To simply throw some high-brow insults at him and walk-off is intellectually lazy, and blinds you to someone becoming what Buffalo boy became. I live down the street from a pre-Revolutionary fort, a real facet of the settlers lives was dealing with Indian raids. They would sneak in and, under cover of darkness, kill as many as they could. This attack, ultimately, makes me think of a modern raid.
        yterdy 4y ago
        >Indigenous groups breaking into the forts of literal colonialists, for whom racism was a matter of religious doctrine, to try to force them away before they perpetrate another massacre >A white supremacist walks into a public space and shoots the descendants of people brought to this country in bondage by, get this, the aforementioned colonialists The situations seems somewhat different. Less a modern raid than a modern massacre.
        whydoibother 4y ago
    - pseudo0 4y ago
      He was previously put on psych hold after threatening his classmates: https://nypost.com/2022/05/15/payton-gendron-was-hospitalized-after-threatening-classmates/ https://nypost.com/2022/05/15/payton-gendron-was-hospitalize...
- honkdaddy 4y ago
  That's exactly what I said, no? The top of the pipeline. Millions and millions of people from all over the world browse 4chan. The number of people who sit in Discord chats actively discussing plans for how to efficiently kill others is much, much lower. That's what I'm getting at.
flakovertarget 4y ago
> There's a big difference, IMO, between watching low-budget white nationalism content on YouTube and having long, daily, hate-filled discussions with people who share your anger. But what is the actual end-goal here, have a "probe" and say "we did what we could" as did the NY police when they investigated and passed over the Buffalo shooter for his prior threats?
- honkdaddy 4y ago
  Oh I have no idea. I expect very little productive to come of this investigation. I think the only main point I'm trying to make here is that the true radicalization often happens in private, which sadly makes it all the more difficult to disinfect.
UweSchmidt 4y ago
If Discord had "a major role" then wow - you'd put a huge burden on everyone who enables any kind of communication. All of them would have to implement a heavyhanded manual and automated censorship, with banning discussion of certain topics outright, use of machine learning to analyze sentiment... It would be the end of encryption (because if you don't combat encryption, you have a 'major role' in anything bad that happens). Of course Discord has no responsibility in what people talk about on their system. Otherwise they should claim partial ownership on all good ideas that come out of it too. I blame a divisive society pitting people against each other and allowing no middle ground, leading to radicalization, and the availability of guns that allow people to immediately act on their hate.
- dfxm12 4y ago
  What does it mean to blame something as abstract as "a divisive society"? That's bit of a cop out, don't you think? There are real people, coming from conservative think tanks, conservative politicians, etc., that put these ideas into the shooter's head and allow guns to be so available. Lay the blame there.
  - flakovertarget 4y ago
    - mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
      It was 100% clear the Buffalo shooter verbatim quoted extremist conservative ideas and racism, even plagiarized another shooter's manifesto. > put ideas into the Antioch shooters head, the Waukesha drivers head, the NYC Subway shooters head I didn't follow those incidents - can you provide links/evidence that there were left/progressive political motivations in those acts? Or is this more so the same notion that McDonald's put ideas about food in the NYC subway shooters head?
      - leereeves 4y ago
        I've been reading about similar incidents to compare media coverage with Buffalo, so I can share some of the links you asked for: > [Accused NYC subway shooter Frank] James posted material on social media linked to black identity extremist ideologies, including the Nation of Islam, Black Panthers, Black Liberation Army, BLM and an image of black nationalist cop-killer Micah Johnson [who killed five police officers in Dallas in 2016]. https://nypost.com/2022/04/13/suspect-frank-james-was-spewing-racist-hate-well-before-brooklyn-shooting/ https://nypost.com/2022/04/13/suspect-frank-james-was-spewin... > [Accused Waukesha parade killer Darrell Brooks shared] numerous posts attacking cops, comparing them to Ku Klux Klan members and calling them “violent street gangs” — as well as calling for violence toward white people, according to screenshots. https://nypost.com/2021/11/24/darrell-brooks-called-for-violence-against-white-people/ https://nypost.com/2021/11/24/darrell-brooks-called-for-viol... But I don't know which "Antioch shooter" flakovertarget was referring to; it seems Antioch is a dangerous place where shootings are common.
JKCalhoun 4y ago
Seems like that may simply be reflecting a gradual migration in which social platforms are being used.
yucky 4y ago
He was also sporting the same black sun as the Ukrainian Azov Battalion, so considering the timing should we blame Ukraine as well? I mean all we've been hearing in media is how they're hero's and this guy was wearing their same insignia.. https://mronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Buffalo-Shooter-Payton.jpeg https://mronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Buffalo-Shoo...
- antifa 4y ago
  The black sun used by both azov and the shooter are from nazi germany: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sun_(symbol) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sun_(symbol)

jbullock35 4y ago

> People like to scapegoat 4chan when these things happen, presumably because it's at the top of the pipeline for a lot of these people, but in this specific case the shooter barely used image boards From the shooter's diary: > "I only really turned racist when 4chan started giving me facts that they were intellectually and emotionally inferior," he wrote on May 5, referring to Black people. Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/buffalo-shooting-supermarket-673-page-diary-reveals-suspects-descent-into-racist-extremism-11652814938 https://www.wsj.com/articles/buffalo-shooting-supermarket-67.... See https://archive.ph/0Nnj7 https://archive.ph/0Nnj7 for a non-paywalled version.

prepend 4y ago
I don’t think shooter diaries are terribly authoritative when the shooter is crazy. We definitely have an unreliable narrator. If the goal is to prevent future shooters, I think log files of the shooters behavior is more important than what they say is most important.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- guelo 4y ago
  There's no evidence that the shooter is crazy.
  - phdelightful 4y ago
    Don’t you have to be at least a little bit more detached from reality than the median person (“crazy”) to shoot up a supermarket? I don’t think crazy in a blank check to get away with whatever you want, you can definitely make yourself crazy in entirely foreseeable and avoidable ways that are your responsibility. This can still render you unreliable when it comes to your own motivations.
    - flakovertarget 4y ago
      > Don’t you have to be at least a little bit more detached from reality than the median person (“crazy”) to shoot up a supermarket? I would say, "yes," but this is crazy in some type of modern-day social sense of the term. If we're to consider the long, rich history of human violence it looks a bit pedestrian. He's not a member of your tribe, your tribe attacks his tribe, he attacks yours. He played by an older, darker, less civilized rule-book. So he's not "seeing things schizo crazy" and so in some sense, no, he is not crazy.
      - phdelightful 4y ago
        I take your point. I think I was just reacting to various flavors of “he’s not crazy” as having a potentially normalizing effect but that may not be what was intended, or what other readers focused on.
        flakovertarget 4y ago
        > as having a potentially normalizing effect I find virtually all mainstream discourse around mass-casualty attacks to be either normalizing or to just simply sweep the issue under the rug and ignore it. There is no deep discussion on the topics, just further fiddling.
        4y ago
- jl6 4y ago
  His motivations may be horrible and his logic may be flawed but that doesn’t make him crazy.
  - wmeredith 4y ago
    Good point, but it's not like there's a diagnostic definition of "crazy" anyway. Replace that language with "deluded, ignorant, and sociopathic" and the statement you replied to makes more sense.
    - flakovertarget 4y ago
      > Replace that language with "deluded, ignorant, and sociopathic" I really wouldn't call him any of those terms, he simply has a completely different "tribe," value system, and morality than yours. To simply throw some high-brow insults at him and walk-off is intellectually lazy, and blinds you to someone becoming what Buffalo boy became. I live down the street from a pre-Revolutionary fort, a real facet of the settlers lives was dealing with Indian raids. They would sneak in and, under cover of darkness, kill as many as they could. This attack, ultimately, makes me think of a modern raid.
      - yterdy 4y ago
        >Indigenous groups breaking into the forts of literal colonialists, for whom racism was a matter of religious doctrine, to try to force them away before they perpetrate another massacre >A white supremacist walks into a public space and shoots the descendants of people brought to this country in bondage by, get this, the aforementioned colonialists The situations seems somewhat different. Less a modern raid than a modern massacre.
      - whydoibother 4y ago
  - pseudo0 4y ago
    He was previously put on psych hold after threatening his classmates: https://nypost.com/2022/05/15/payton-gendron-was-hospitalized-after-threatening-classmates/ https://nypost.com/2022/05/15/payton-gendron-was-hospitalize...
honkdaddy 4y ago
That's exactly what I said, no? The top of the pipeline. Millions and millions of people from all over the world browse 4chan. The number of people who sit in Discord chats actively discussing plans for how to efficiently kill others is much, much lower. That's what I'm getting at.

flakovertarget 4y ago

> There's a big difference, IMO, between watching low-budget white nationalism content on YouTube and having long, daily, hate-filled discussions with people who share your anger. But what is the actual end-goal here, have a "probe" and say "we did what we could" as did the NY police when they investigated and passed over the Buffalo shooter for his prior threats?

honkdaddy 4y ago
Oh I have no idea. I expect very little productive to come of this investigation. I think the only main point I'm trying to make here is that the true radicalization often happens in private, which sadly makes it all the more difficult to disinfect.

UweSchmidt 4y ago

If Discord had "a major role" then wow - you'd put a huge burden on everyone who enables any kind of communication. All of them would have to implement a heavyhanded manual and automated censorship, with banning discussion of certain topics outright, use of machine learning to analyze sentiment... It would be the end of encryption (because if you don't combat encryption, you have a 'major role' in anything bad that happens). Of course Discord has no responsibility in what people talk about on their system. Otherwise they should claim partial ownership on all good ideas that come out of it too. I blame a divisive society pitting people against each other and allowing no middle ground, leading to radicalization, and the availability of guns that allow people to immediately act on their hate.

dfxm12 4y ago
What does it mean to blame something as abstract as "a divisive society"? That's bit of a cop out, don't you think? There are real people, coming from conservative think tanks, conservative politicians, etc., that put these ideas into the shooter's head and allow guns to be so available. Lay the blame there.
- flakovertarget 4y ago
  - mattbrewsbytes 4y ago
    It was 100% clear the Buffalo shooter verbatim quoted extremist conservative ideas and racism, even plagiarized another shooter's manifesto. > put ideas into the Antioch shooters head, the Waukesha drivers head, the NYC Subway shooters head I didn't follow those incidents - can you provide links/evidence that there were left/progressive political motivations in those acts? Or is this more so the same notion that McDonald's put ideas about food in the NYC subway shooters head?
    - leereeves 4y ago
      I've been reading about similar incidents to compare media coverage with Buffalo, so I can share some of the links you asked for: > [Accused NYC subway shooter Frank] James posted material on social media linked to black identity extremist ideologies, including the Nation of Islam, Black Panthers, Black Liberation Army, BLM and an image of black nationalist cop-killer Micah Johnson [who killed five police officers in Dallas in 2016]. https://nypost.com/2022/04/13/suspect-frank-james-was-spewing-racist-hate-well-before-brooklyn-shooting/ https://nypost.com/2022/04/13/suspect-frank-james-was-spewin... > [Accused Waukesha parade killer Darrell Brooks shared] numerous posts attacking cops, comparing them to Ku Klux Klan members and calling them “violent street gangs” — as well as calling for violence toward white people, according to screenshots. https://nypost.com/2021/11/24/darrell-brooks-called-for-violence-against-white-people/ https://nypost.com/2021/11/24/darrell-brooks-called-for-viol... But I don't know which "Antioch shooter" flakovertarget was referring to; it seems Antioch is a dangerous place where shootings are common.

JKCalhoun 4y ago

Seems like that may simply be reflecting a gradual migration in which social platforms are being used.

yucky 4y ago

He was also sporting the same black sun as the Ukrainian Azov Battalion, so considering the timing should we blame Ukraine as well? I mean all we've been hearing in media is how they're hero's and this guy was wearing their same insignia.. https://mronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Buffalo-Shooter-Payton.jpeg https://mronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Buffalo-Shoo...

antifa 4y ago
The black sun used by both azov and the shooter are from nazi germany: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sun_(symbol) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sun_(symbol)