Selena Gomez urges social media companies to crack down on hate speechSelena Gomez urges social media companies to crack down on hate speech

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In the wake of the Buffalo, NY shooting, Selena Gomez is pleading with social media companies to do more about the rise of hate speech on their platforms. 

Selena retweeted a post from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which quoted CEO Imran Ahmed’s warning: “The failure of social media giants to effectively tackle online hate and misinformation has real-world impacts. Words can kill.”

Selena added her own thoughts to the post, writing, “My heart is broken by the horrific attack in Buffalo. Social media companies have not done enough to deal with hate.”

On Saturday, an 18-year-old white man shot and killed 10 Black people in a Buffalo supermarket in what authorities are calling a “racially motivated hate crime.”  Evidence points to the shooter self-radicalized during the pandemic by consuming hate posts on social media, according to a senior law enforcement source briefed on the case.

Selena has regularly spoken out about the consequences of social media giants not curbing hate and misinformation on their platforms.  She has been particularly vocal about the rise of vaccine misinformation during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

She told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe last year that she no longer cared about the consequences of confronting social media owners about their inaction.  “I can’t stand the fact that people have to know that there are neo-Nazi groups online, and there are hate groups online, and misinformation — from U.S. voting to the COVID virus,” she said. “This is supposed to be a place where people share… their life. Not to create hate and to hurt people.”

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