Meta back in court over white supremacist mass shooting in Buffalo

Families of the victims of the 2022 attack argue that the shooter, Payton Gendron, was addicted to social media, where he consumed hateful content that inspired the shooting.ALBANY, N.Y. (CN) — New York’s high court on Tuesday held lengthy oral arguments to determine whether or not social media companies like Meta should be liable for Payton Gendron’s 2022 mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, that killed 10.In a more than two-hour hearing at the New York Court of Appeals, lawyers for the victims of the attack argued that the incident was, at least in part, prompted by Gendron’s addiction to social media. Diary entries uncovered after the shooting revealed the then-teenager expressed feeling isolated and spending large amounts of time consuming alt-right content on the internet by himself.When pleading guilty to the shooting, Gendron admitted to targeting Black shoppers in the racially motivated attack.“Without the changes in his brain and his psychology caused by social media addiction, the shooting may not have happened,” Jennifer Bennett, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, told the court’s seven judges.But the high court expressed some skepticism, with several judges pointing out the shooting was more likely caused by the content itself that Gendron consumed — not necessarily his addiction to the platform.Thanks to Section 230, a 1996 federal law that protects platforms from potentially harmful content posted by its users, a site like Meta’s Instagram wouldn’t be liable if that content was indeed the cause of Gendron’s violence.“Surely every potential actor who’s suffering from a social media addiction is not going to go out and perform a shooting based on some innocuous form of content,” Associate Judge of the Court of Appeals Anthony Cannataro said. “Someone who likes to watch tons and tons of travel videos, are they going to go out and commit a shooting just based solely on their addiction?”Associate Judge of the Court of Appeals Michael Garcia, asked: “If somebody is addicted to cat videos, would they also be more likely to commit a shooting like this?”Bennett argued they would be, noting that intentionally addictive social media algorithms, which the companies can be held liable for, can work in tangent with the problematic content, which the companies are not responsible for.“The duty is to design a reasonably safe social media product,” Matthew Bergman, who also represents the suing families, told the court.A New York Court initially sided with the plaintiffs in finding social media companies like Meta could be sued on this basis of addiction. But last year, a mid-level state appellate court sided with the social media platforms, finding that the lower court’s ruling was a consequential affront to Section 230 and that the families’ case must be dismissed.“We believe that the motion court’s ruling, if allowed to stand, would gut the immunity provisions of Section 230 and result in the end of the internet as we know it,” the court found in its 2025 ruling.Meta attorney Eric Shumsky echoed that opinion to the high court judges on Tuesday, claiming the families’ arguments hinge solely on the content Gendron consumed, not his general use of social media.He added the newest forms of media have repeatedly faced litigation in recent history for their supposed harms on society, only to fail First Amendment tests.“Theories like this are very, very old and they have always lost,” he said. “Plaintiffs have argued that every last type of media, including new technologies, are somehow so inherently harmful that they shouldn’t get First Amendment protection. It was comic books, then it was music lyrics … then it was movies, then it was violent video games. At every single turn, courts have rejected that argument.”The New York Court of Appeals didn’t immediately rule following Tuesday’s arguments.Gendron has been serving a life sentence for the shooting since 2022, when he pleaded guilty to state-level charges including murder, domestic terrorism and hate crimes. He is also federally charged for the attack and could face the death penalty. Jury selection in that case starts in October.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads