Elon Musk faced a test after Texas shooting. He failed.

tech.hindustantimes.com:

 Gruesome images of the aftermath of Saturday's mass shooting at a Texas mall were allowed to circulate widely on Twitter. 

The platform should never have allowed the pictures of bloodied and disfigured victims — one of whom appeared to be a child — to be shared, and it underscored the dangers of having Elon Musk, someone with little regard for the importance of monitoring and promptly removing graphic images, at the helm of one of the most popular social networks. 

It's easy to understand why some people wanted to share these shocking images: to send a message to lawmakers that the country is fed up with their failure to effectively regulate guns, or to convince die-hard Republican voters that they need to rethink who they support in elections. This time, eight people were senselessly killed, including a 3-year-old and two elementary-school-age siblings, and at least seven others were injured.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more people are shot, there have already been over 200 mass shootings in the US this year.

While we should keep excoriating our leaders (and voters) for letting the country's bloodshed and trauma continue, sharing these kinds of pictures might only be making our country less safe.

Over 200 studies have shown that being exposed to violent imagery is correlated with committing acts of violence, and an investigation last year by the New York Times found that the kinds of violent, hateful posts that used to exist on more obscure parts of the internet are now endemic on mainstream social networks. 

This can help explain why, as people have come to use social media more, the US has become more violent. For example, according to FBI data compiled by