Lessons from the Elliot Rodger Attack: Taking Online Threats Seriously

To New York Times reporter Jennifer Medina, Professor Adam Winkler wisely remarked that although there isn’t an easy solution to mass shootings, there is an overlooked lesson: that people should “take threats made on social media more seriously.” Elliot Rodger was “advertising to people that he was a threat; if more people had acted on it and reported it, it’s possible law enforcement would have acted differently,” he surmised.