Buffalo shooter invited others to his private Discord ‘diary’ 30 minutes before attack

The shooter who opened fire in a Buffalo, New York supermarket over the weekend used a service from Discord.

The shooter, 18-year-old Payton Gendron, is charged with first degree murder in the mass shooting that left 10 people dead and three injured. In the month leading up to the attack on the Buffalo Tops grocery store, which he researched and selected in an effort to harm as many Black people as possible, he used Discord to document his plans in extreme detail.

The suspected shooter created a private, invite-only server that he used as a personal diary chat log.

The diary chat log in this private server was not seen by any other people before that. The company was reached out to for more information about the server's activity and how it handles moderation.

It is best known for its large, public messaging rooms but it also allows users to create private, invite-only server. The suspect in the shooting documented his racist views in detail in updates to the Discord server. He detailed how he would carry out the mass shooting, including the gear he would use, his shopping trips leading up to the shooting, and his day-of plans.

Gendron references his activity on the app in the chat logs, but he doesn't know what other Discord server he was on. While Discord was a kind of digital journal for the atrocities he would later carry out, he also compiled a nearly 200 page rant about his beliefs, weapons and plans to commit violence.

He was worried that a worker at the company would see his plan for violence in his messages. The document was removed from the service after the shooting.

The suspect in the shooting that was broadcasted over the internet spent time on 4chan's /pol/, which is rife with racism, sexism and extremism. 4chan does not do any proactive content moderation and only removes illegal content when required to do so. The shooter notes in his chat logs that he only became racist after seeing white supremacist ideas on 4chan.

There are no easy answers for tech in the aftermath of the Buffalo tragedy

Five years ago, Discord was implicated in the Unite the Right rally, an open gathering of white supremacists and other far-right extremists that ended with one counter-protester dead. The rally's participants and organizers came together in private to plan the day's events and discuss the logistics of what would take place in Charlottesville. The company cracked down on a number of server hosting extremists, though it maintained that it did not read messages on private server.

Most of the moderation on Discord comes from the community. Like most social media companies, Discord uses a blend of automated and human moderation. Last year, the company acquired Sentropy, a software company that removes online hate and harassment.

In the years after the deadly violence in Virginia, Discord tried to distance itself from the far-right extremists and white supremacists who used to call it home. The current brand of Discord has distanced itself from its origins as a popular chat app for gaming, reframing itself as an inviting hub for a huge spectrum of thriving online communities.

The tragedy in Buffalo has caused us to offer our deepest sympathies to the victims and their families.

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