In the hours before Robert Bowers opened fire on a Pittsburgh synagogue, he posted a string of hostile and anti-Semitic messages on the social media website Gab, saying, among other things, “Screw your optics, I’m going in.”

By the evening of Oct. 27, 11 congregants were dead, several others were injured, and the 46-year-old Bowers faced a total of 65 criminal charges, including 11 counts of homicide in state court and 11 federal counts of obstruction of exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death. Internet service providers like PayPal also stopped working with the company soon after it was reported that Bowers used the site to spread anti-Semitic messages, and President Donald Trump called for Bowers to get the death penalty.

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