WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — In the aftermath of the mass shooting in Buffalo, many are now asking how the accused 18-year-old gunman may have been radicalized online.
"Unfortunately, online radicalization is probably the biggest growing way to do it," Scott Ernest, a former member of a hate group who left the white nationalist movement in 2015. "You just do it online in forums, you do it in video games."
Ernest is now pursuing a graduate degree at the University of South Florida and works to help those who leave hate groups.
He said theories like white replacement, have long been a part of the hate groups. Authorities said it was also a noted motivation for the Buffalo gunman.
"White replacement type of things have been going on forever. A lot of that stuff [was occurring] back in the days of Jim Crow, being afraid of people coming down and replacing white people," Ernest said.
Combating conspiracy theories and stopping the violence needs to be fought on many levels, said Lia Gaines, a former president of the NAACP in Palm Beach County.
"I always keep hope alive, but it has to happen with action," Gaines said. "There's always hope to have action, but when there is no realization of where it comes from, where it bubbles up from, it's coming from every facet of America."