--- title: Social Media Helps After Mass Shootings. It Also Fuels Them description: Parkland survivor Ryan Deitsch on the messages he gets on social media after mass shootings and why we can't wait to fight toxicity on these platforms canonical: https://time.com/5646317/mass-shootings-social-media/ author: Ryan Deitsch article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-08-07T17:44:24.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:52:39.713Z article:section: Ideas og:title: We Can't Allow Hate to Take Over Social Media og:description: It can be a tool for good after mass shootings. But it can also fuel them og:url: https://time.com/5646317/mass-shootings-social-media/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfe0ae18bc70c5ae5/698a010897cdff032d6b95af/el-paso-protests.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: US-CRIME-SHOOTING-TOLL og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: We Can't Allow Hate to Take Over Social Media twitter:description: It can be a tool for good after mass shootings. But it can also fuel them twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfe0ae18bc70c5ae5/698a010897cdff032d6b95af/el-paso-protests.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Social Media Has Been a Tool for Good After Mass Shootings. We Can't Cede It to Hate > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=7a6da3e6-eae6-4981-80c5-936036b499c3&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Time 100 | The Parkland Students [Watch (HLS stream): Time 100 | The Parkland Students](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/JC1DqSyX.m3u8) (2:34)  _Published 2018-03-25. Five Parkland school shooting survivors who are leading the #NeverAgain movement to end gun violence in schools speak to TIME's Charlotte Alter about their historic march on Washington, and what comes next._ by [Ryan Deitsch](https://time.com/author/ryan-deitsch/) ## Ryan Deitsch Aug 7, 2019 5:44 PM UTC  People pray and pay their respects at the makeshift memorial for victims of the shooting that left a total of 22 people dead at the Cielo Vista Mall WalMart (background) in El Paso, Texas, on August 6, 2019. People pray and pay their respects at the makeshift memorial for victims of the shooting that left a total of 22 people dead at the Cielo Vista Mall WalMart (background) in El Paso, Texas, on August 6, 2019. Mark Ralson—AFP/Getty Images by [Ryan Deitsch](https://time.com/author/ryan-deitsch/) ## Ryan Deitsch Aug 7, 2019 5:44 PM UTC On February 14, 2018, the world stood in shock with my school as we mourned the 17 lives lost in Parkland, Fla. First, we mourned, then we marched – all to the tune of “Never Again.” But our hearts shattered once it happened again. And again. And again. And again. March For Our Lives may have been founded after Parkland, but the pattern of violence we fight started long before my friends and I were born. Still, in this modern era, it feels incessant, in part because there are more than 300 mass shootings a year and in part because of the role social media plays. It’s easy to focus on the negative – the message boards where hate lurks, the conspiracy theorists who antagonize survivors and their families via Twitter. It’s easy (and frankly, understandable) to want to sign off. But after each new tragedy strikes, I stay logged on. After the recent shootings in Chicago, Dayton and El Paso, I could not help but look toward the direct messages the March For Our Lives social media accounts receive. This week, as with after every shooting since Parkland, we have received an influx of messages ranging from insensitive hate to fear and uncertainty of what’s to come. While it’s certainly easy to be blinded by such violent vitriol, I prefer to focus on the latter camp: the ones looking for answers after these unthinkable tragedies. Sometimes there are even those reaching out from the location of the shooting in near real time. It’s astounding. Just imagine, you’re in your high school algebra class, trying to answer questions on logarithmic functions, when your phone rings, and then rings again, and again, with someone across the country sending you possibly the last message they will ever send. After last year’s Yountville Shooting at a Veterans Home in California, survivors were doing just that. My teacher yelled at me that day to ignore my phone, but I knew full well there was someone out there in pain, the same exact pain I had felt just weeks prior. After the Jacksonville Landing shooting at a Madden tournament, I found myself in a similar situation: I was out to lunch with friends as I received calls and direct messages from survivors mere moments after the first shot. These people had gone through an experience in which they thought they might not make it out alive. They don’t know what to do with themselves as they frantically come to understand their new reality, their new normal. Their ages range depending on the tragedy, with some elementary schoolers even reaching out (don’t know why they’re on Twitter but I’m there for them too). Online platforms have connected millions and allowed survivors of gun violence to come together following tremendous loss. Yet, at the same time, sites like 8chan and Twitter have been used to connect another breed of people: the murderers and terrorists themselves. These sites are inciting violence and spreading the manifestos of multiple mass shooters, all with a history of hate and vitriol toward many minority groups. This growing scourge of radical domestic terrorism the likes we’ve seen in El Paso and Dayton has strengthened itself through these online echo chambers. For instance, after the Poway Synagogue Shooting massacre, one 8chan user proudly published: “I’m So Pleased a Jew Church got shot up : ))))) Wish more Jews got shot up : / No worries there will be more synagogue shootups : ))))” Does this make you uncomfortable? These are the words of our neighbors. Social media is the double-edged sword of the modern age, with these direct messages bringing comfort and strength to those seeking ceasefire and message boards fueling the fire they wish to cease. Take Facebook, for example, a site originally designed for people to connect with friends and family. It’s turned into a propagandist paradise, used to spread misinformation both here and abroad. To move forward as a society, we as Americans must determine where the benefits and consequences of these tools lay. Will we use them to help or harm us? For now, my friends and I don’t sign off, not permanently at least. Someone may reach out needing to hear our advice or just looking for someone willing to listen. We unfortunately understand all too well what they’re going through. When it comes to these shooters, however, we cannot just “thoughts and prayers” away these terrorist acts. We must proactively prevent them, finding where they organize and preventing their strikes before a single shot is fired. These groups are violent because they are scared. Their fear has poisoned too many of our neighbors, and it’s time we act to heal the toxic underbelly of America. We can put this to an end. We must open a constructive dialogue and replace their fears with education. Social media leaders should work with all of us to actively condemn and prevent stochastic terrorism, but we cannot wait until they do. ## Transcript 911, What's your emergency? Please help us, please help us, somebody. A shooter a shooter. Is anybody injured? Yes, yes. A lot of bodies. Just please help. Please [ sobbing ] Right after February 14 A whole community of people were hurting, a whole community of people didn't know what to say, didn't know what to do, nor should hey have, this is an unfathomable thing. [ MUSIC ] We don't want your thoughts and prayers, okay, stop sending those, that's enough, we are the people who instantly said this can be prevented, this should have been prevented and this has been prevented in other countries My name is Jaclyn Corin, I'm 17. I'm Alex Wind, I'm 17. I'm Emma Gonzalez. I'm 18 years old. I can vote. I'm David Hogg. I'm 17 years old. My name is Cameron Kasky. I'm 17 and I'm a junior member of the Never Again MSD Movement, which started in my living Sitting room. Today we take to the streets in over 800 marches around the globe and demand common sense gun laws. [ UNKNOWN ] Today is the beginning of a bright new future for this country. And if you think today is good Just wait for tomorrow. [ APPLAUSE ] President Trump is not going to be able to walk away from The March For Our Lives. Nobody is going to be able to walk away. Who are we? MSE! Who are we? Teenagers know this situation because we experience this first- hand. The people in the whitehouse don't know what it feels like to be trapped in a closet, fearing For your life, because you don't know whether the knocks you hear outside are police or a shooter. People are inspired by us because we're their age. We're just like them, we could be friends with them if we went to their schools, and they're seeing us on TV and speaking up on social media. Vote them out. Vote them out. We are here to remind American citizens that, Their lawmakers work for them, and that they can demand change. And when it comes to gun violence and gun laws, these politicians are going to have to understand that it's not about their personal views anymore. We voted you into office because you were going to keep our best interests at heart, and you did not. So this is the time to change that [ APPLAUSE ] Imagine a country that allows its children to be slaughtered and does nothing about it. That doesn't sound like America. 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