Experts say removing alleged London attacker’s social media profile was right move
People who study online hate say Facebook was right to remove the profile of a man accused of killing four members of an Ontario Muslim family, but they say social media companies need to do more to suppress dangerous content.
The decision to take down Nathaniel Veltman’s Facebook profile this week soon after he was identified as the suspect was “probably a prudent public relations move and a good public safety move,” said Natasha Tusikov, a criminology professor at York University who studies the relationship between crime, law, regulation and technology.
“The benefits of removing something like that, making sure that anyone tempted by this point of view doesn’t see that, is a good thing,” Tusikov said in a phone interview Wednesday.
In past incidents, social media profiles — on mainstream platforms as well as fringe networks aimed at the far-right — have attracted supporters of the alleged killers, said Tusikov, a former strategic criminal intelligence analyst with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Removing the alleged killer’s social media profile shields people who knew the victims from seeing those messages of support and also helps ensure that people in the alleged attacker’s social network aren’t harassed.