Media law expert explains social media platforms’ liability in mass shooting cases
The gunman, Salvador Ramos, reportedly sent text messages and made social media posts minutes before the attack. Now, we are taking a look at the role social media plays in these types of incidents.
Western Mass News spoke with a media law professor who said that there is a difference between a legal responsibility and a moral one, and tech companies have no legal obligation to report any posts to the police.
Western Mass News has learned more about 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, who killed 21 people, most of whom were children, at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
Minutes before the attack, Ramos allegedly sent several text messages to a German girl he met through a social media app called Yubo.
Some messages read, “I just shot my grandma in her head,” followed by, “ima go shoot up an elementary school [right now].”
Ramos’s Instagram account also showed a picture of two weapons, and Facebook confirmed that Ramos sent private messages through their platform to others, informing them about what he was going to do.
This came less than two weeks after the shooter behind the Buffalo supermarket massacre, Payton Gendron, allegedly posted a racist manifesto on social media and livestreamed the killing on Twitch.
We wanted to know: what is a social media company’s liability when it comes to these types of posts?
Professor of Media Law at Bentley University, Steve Weisman, told us that there is none.
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