German synagogue shooting was streamed on Twitch

There has been another synagogue shooting and this time, it was livestreamed on Twitch. 

The 35-minute long shot on October 9 follows the shooter as he kills two people outside of a synagogue in the eastern German city, Halle. Several others were injured. 

“We are shocked and saddened by the tragedy that took place in Germany today, and our deepest condolences go out to all those affected,” a representatitve from Twitch stated. 

They went on to detail Twitch’s zero-tolerance policy against “hateful conduct” and “any act of violence” 

The Twitch spokesperson stated that the streaming platform is “working with urgency” to not only remove the content but permanently suspend any accounts found to be reposting the shooting video themselves. 

Twitch has taken the video down, but copies of the footage still exist elsewhere on the internet. 

According to local media reports, the “heavily armed” gunman killed two people before trying to force his way into the temple, presumably to continue the attack while worshippers inside celebrated Yom Kippur. The Saxony-Anhalt citizen had shot a citizen near a Jewish cemetery and then a kebab bistro customer before heading to the temple. 

Before committing the act, the 27-year-old said on stream that “the root of all problems are the Jews.” 

For this reason, the attack is being called an anti-Semitic hate crime with far-right motives. 

This is unfortunately not the first time that live streaming has been used for similar attacks. The Christchurch, New Zealand mosque shooting, which resulted in 50 deaths, was live streamed on Facebook in March. The social media platform had to remove 1.5 million videos of the attack within 24 hours.

The battle to quickly and effectively moderate the content posted to social media platforms is an ongoing battle that doesn’t seem to be close to ending.