OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, says it banned the account of Tumbler Ridge shooting suspect Jesse Van Rootselaar in 2025 after it was flagged internally as being misused in “furtherance of violent activities.”
In a statement to 1130 NewsRadio, the company says it considered referring the account to law enforcement, but determined the activity didn’t meet the threshold to do so.
In order to meet that threshold, the activity would have had to indicate “an imminent and credible risk of serious physical harm to others,” which it did not appear to do, the company says.
OpenAI says it avoids over-enforcement of these policies because it can be distressing when, for example, police show up at the account holder’s home unannounced. This also raises privacy concerns, it says.
After hearing of the mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, OpenAI says it “proactively” reached out to the RCMP with information on the suspect’s use of ChatGPT and says it will continue to support the investigation.
Referrals to law enforcement are just one of the company’s approaches to mitigating risks, it says.
This is not the only example of alarming online activity by the shooter. Van Rootselaar’s Roblox account was also banned after the game developers found it was being used in a game encouraging users to go on a virtual shooting spree. As well, the suspect also made several posts detailing psychotic breaks, childhood traumas, and an interest in mass shooters.
And, as first reported by the New York Times, posts attributed to her on a different website dedicated to gore and death contain perhaps the most alarming red flags. One comment claims that, as a child, the user watched her stepfather attempt to commit suicide. Another says she finds watching violent content addictive. A tracing tool shows that she had recently visited the profile of an American school shooter.
– With files from Jack Rabb