Threshold of Violence | Pandemic & Disinformation | Cyberthreats to Health Industry, and more

Only 22 Saw the Buffalo Shooting Live. Millions Have Seen It Since.  (Drew Harwell and Will Oremus, Washington Post)
Live-streamed from a camera mounted on the Buffalo gunman’s helmet, the video is hauntingly gruesome — a first-person view as he fires a rifle into 10 people, some of them crawling on the supermarket floor. When he discovers a light-skinned man hiding in a checkout aisle, the gunman spares him, saying, “Sorry.” It is exactly the kind of horrific terrorist video that the world’s biggest tech companies have vowed to block. But two days after the shooting, the footage was still widely available online — just as the gunman had hoped, according to a screed he wrote beforehand, bringing more attention to his racist cause. The episode shows how little has changed in the three years since a live-streamed rampage at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, revealed how mass shooters could harness leading social platforms to make their carnage go viral. When the Buffalo gunman broadcast the shooting in real time Saturday on the live-streaming site Twitch, only 22 people were watching, and company officials said they’d removed it with remarkable speed — within two minutes of the first gunshots. But all it took was for one viewer to save a copy and redistribute it online. A jumble of video-hosting sites, extremist message boards and some of Silicon Valley’s biggest names did the rest, ensuring millions of people would view the video.

Cyber Threats to Health, Education Sectors Increase with Ransomware, Limited Security Resources  Bridget Johnson, HSToday)
Cascading impacts from attacks on interconnected critical infrastructure sectors such as communications and electricity “can be substantial.”

A Neo-Nazi Idea to Spark a Race War Inspired the Buffalo Killings  (Zack Beauchamp, Vox)
The weekend’s mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, was not merely a random act of hate. It was the product of a violent strategy, formulated in obscure neo-Nazi magazines and disseminated on the internet’s darkest corners, that aims to bring about the destruction of American society. This idea is called “accelerationism,” and violent white supremacists like the Buffalo shooter see it as their best chance to stop the so-called “Great Replacement”: the notion that the West’s white population is being “replaced” with nonwhites, a deliberate demographic shift often blamed on Jewish cabals. Accelerationists believe that race and ethnicity create inherent divisions within Western societies, which individual acts of violence can inflame. The idea is to “accelerate” the crackup of Western governments — and bring on a race war that culminates in white victory. In a 180-page document, the Buffalo shooter — who, per law enforcement, targeted Black people — directly credits his actions to accelerationist thinking. In a section titled “destabilization and accelerationism: tactics for victory,” he claims that “stability and comfort are the enemies of revolutionary change. Therefore we must destabilize and discomfort society wherever possible.

What Is the ‘Great Replacement’ Theory and the Role It Played in the Buffalo Shooting?  (Evan Santiago, Charlotte Observer)
The “Great Replacement” is most popular among extremist groups, according to The Counter Extremism Project, a nonprofit and non-partisan organization that studies extremist ideologies. The conspiracy theory suggests that non-white people are being planted into the United States in order to diminish or “replace” the white voting population to carry out a political agenda. “Violent white nationalists believe they are ensuring the survival of their own race through violence against other ethnicities,” CEP states on its website. The gunman’s alleged manifesto displays a troubling resemblance to writings published by the Christchurch shooter who killed 51 people at two mosques in New Zealand in 2019. The title of the Christchurch shooter’s nearly 80-page manifesto reportedly draws inspiration from the “Great Replacement” theory. Months after the shooting, another attack took place in a Walmart located in El Paso, Texas, where 21 people were killed. The shooter reportedly was also inspired by the conspiracy theory and allegedly believed there was a “Hispanic invasion of Texas.” Adolphus Belk Jr., professor of political science and African American studies at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, told NPR that white nationalist movements, including those inspired by replacement theory, come about because white supremacists see people of people of color as a threat. Belk explained that extremists’ dedication to the conspiracy theory poses a great risk to marginalized ethnic groups.

U.K. Government’s Counter-Terrorism Program Targeted Mainstream Rightwing Views as ‘Far-Right’ While Ignoring Islamist Extremism and Backing Groups That Promoted the TALIBAN, Says Bombshell Leaked Report  (Sophie Husskison, Daily Mail)
Britain’s counter-terrorism program has focused too much on far-Right fanatics and should now crack down on Islamist extremism, a report has found. An official review of Prevent – the Government’s flagship counter-extremism policy – has found there has been a ‘double standard when dealing with extreme Right-wing and Islamism’, according to leaked draft extracts. There were more referrals to Prevent relating to far-Right extremism than to Islamist radicalization for the first time last year. The leaked extracts, seen by The Guardian yesterday, are also critical of Prevent-funded community groups and organizations, claiming some ‘have promoted extremist narratives, including statements that appear supportive of the Taliban’. It also warned ‘a renewed focus on Islamist extremism is needed, including when individuals do not yet meet the terrorism threshold’. The review, being carried out by Sir William Shawcross, a former chairman of the Charity Commission who is leading the evaluation into Britain’s flagship deradicalization program, also said Prevent was ‘carrying the weight’ for overstretched mental health services.”