Tech firms delete mass shooters’ accounts, but it’s not enough

Since the mass shooting on July 4, which transformed a holiday celebration into a national tragedy, Internet trolls and curious onlookers have passed around archives of Crimo’s accounts and picked apart his postings. — AFP Relaxnews

Mass shooting events like the one that happened July 4 near Chicago typically set off an-all-too-common chain of procedures at tech companies: unearth the attacker’s online presence, capture possibly incriminating posts and quickly shut their accounts.

As frequent as this protocol has become, the companies are still not fast enough to prevent a dangerous knock-on effect of the violence. Social media users themselves swiftly find, circulate and discuss the shooter’s posts, in some cases creating a glorification and amplification of murder that could inspire other shootings and that the technology industry – for all its engineering might – remains ill-equipped to contain.