Social Media Victims Law Center: Buffalo Judge Denies Social Media Companies' Motion to Dismiss Lawsuits Related to Their Role in Radicalizing Shooter at the Tops Friendly Markets Mass Shooting; Case to Proceed to Discovery
Erie County Supreme Court Judge Paula L. Feroleto issued a Decision and Order denying Meta Platforms, Inc., Snap, Inc.; Alphabet, Inc., Discord, Inc.; Reddit, Inc.; and Amazon.com, Inc.'s motion to dismiss a lawsuit the social media companies are facing for their role in radicalizing the shooter to commit white supremacist murders at the Tops Friendly Markets in Buffalo, N.Y. on May 14, 2022. Ten people were killed, all of them Black, and three people were injured.
In their motion, the social media companies argued they were immune from civil liability by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and the First Amendment. However, Plaintiffs lawyers from the Social Media Victims Law Center and Law Office of John V. Elmore argued that this was a product liability case based on the addictive and dangerously defective design of the social media platforms which makes Section 230 irrelevant in this lawsuit.
Judge Feroleto agreed with the Social Media Victims Law Center writing in her order, "The defendants contend that no matter how the plaintiffs frame their complaint the only conceivable actionable activity of the defendants is the hosting of third-party content on their platforms....However, plaintiffs contend the defendants' platforms are more than just message boards containing third-party content. They allege they are sophisticated products designed to be addictive to young users and they specifically directed Gendron to further platforms or postings that indoctrinated him with "white replacement theory." ...Contrary to the assertions of the defendants, the factual allegations as a whole in the 715 paragraphs of the complaint are sufficient to allege viable causes of action against each of the social media/internet defendants."
The complaint alleges that Gendron was radicalized by the algorithms driving the social media products he used, which fed him increasingly racist, antisemitic, and violence-inducing content. According to comments from Gendron's own criminal defense attorney, "The racist hate that motivated this crime was spread through on-line platforms...."
"This historic ruling will for the first-time permit victims of racist, antisemitic, anti-immigrant, and homophobic violence to hold social media companies accountable for contributing to the epidemic of mass shootings that are plaguing our nation," said Matthew P. Bergman, founding attorney of Social Media Victims Law Center, which is representing several of the families. "Social media companies purposefully designed their products to be addictive to young users like the Buffalo shooter and the artificial intelligence driven algorithms that radicalized him to commit unspeakable acts of racist violence at Tops Friendly Markets were foreseeable consequences of their intentional design decisions. These companies need to be held accountable for the role in radicalizing people resulting in all these mass shootings across America."
In a previous ruling from February 28, 2024, Judge Feroleto also denied a motion by 4Chan, an image-based bulletin board where users can post comments and share images anonymously, to have the lawsuit dismissed because New York was not the proper location for the lawsuit because the court lacked jurisdiction in the case since 4Chan was not a New York corporation nor did it have a primary place of business in the state.
Others named in the lawsuit are RMA Armament, an Iowa-based body armor manufacturer; Vintage Firearms, a retail gun store located in Endicott, N.Y.; MEAN L.L.C., a manufacturer in Woodstock, Ga., which sells the MEAN MA Lock; and Paul and Pamela Gendron, Gendron's parents.
About the Social Media Victims Law Center
The Social Media Victims Law Center (SMVLC), socialmediavictims.org, was founded in 2021 to hold social media companies legally accountable for the harm they inflict on vulnerable users. SMVLC seeks to apply principles of product liability to force social media companies to elevate consumer safety to the forefront of its economic analysis and design safer platforms to protect users from foreseeable harm.
About Matthew P. Bergman
Matthew P. Bergman is an attorney, law professor, philanthropist and community activist who has recovered over $1 billion on behalf of his clients. He is the founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center and Bergman Draper Oslund Udo law firm; a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School; and serves on the board of directors of nonprofit institutions in higher education, national security, civil rights, worker protection and the arts.
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