NEW YORK — Citing the online manifesto attributed to the Buffalo shooter, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Sunday urged social media companies to crack down on hate speech — calling the sites “instruments of evil.”
“I’m calling on the CEOs of all the social media platforms to examine their policies and to be able to look me in the eye and tell me that everything is being done that they can to make sure that this information is not spread,” she told CNN’s “State of the Union,” speaking a day after 18-year-old Payton Gendron, who is white, allegedly killed 10 in an attack targeting Black people.
“They have to identify when information like this — the second it hits the platform, it needs to be taken down, because this is spreading like wildfire. These theories that result in the radicalization of a young person sitting in their house is deeply scary, and it’s something that has to be dealt with,” added Hochul, a Democrat.
