Saturday’s massacre by the 18-year-old white supremacist, which killed 10, has been called a made-for-the-internet massacre, the shooter streaming the massacre on Twitch for about two minutes — as Rashad pointed out, it’s owned by Amazon — before Twitch took it down. Users of hate-filled online message boards like 4chan soon shared the video. It was being watched by 22 people, and now it’s been watched by millions.
For more, we’re joined by journalist and author Talia Lavin, who spent nearly a year impersonating right-wing white supremacists online, assuming false identities to infiltrate their groups as she worked on her book Culture Warlords: My Journey into the Dark Web of White Supremacy.
Talia, welcome to Democracy Now! In the process of writing your book, you also explored the relationship between the extreme right and conservatives in the United States in the mainstream, which you write about in your new piece for Rolling Stone headlined “The Buffalo Shooter Isn’t a ‘Lone Wolf.’ He’s a Mainstream Republican.” Take us through your response to what happened and your journey through the dark web. But as you said, it doesn’t just exist there, in 4chan, in 8chan, in the Dylann Roof groups, those who praise the
— source democracynow.org | May 17, 2022