New York State Judge rules for Buffalo mass shooting civil suit against social media companies to move forward

On May 14, 2022, an 18-year-old gunman named Payton Gendron opened fire at the Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, New York. The reportedly racially motivated shooting led to the death of 10 black people and injured three more. On Tuesday, March 19, the non-profit group Everytown for Gun Safety filed two lawsuits on behalf of the son of one of the victims and the 16 survivors of the shooting.

Multiple defendants named in the lawsuit included parents of the shooter, the manufacturers of both his body armor and magazine-lock, the store that sold him the illegal assault weapon, and social media sites YouTube and Reddit. The lawsuit alleged that these platforms radicalized the shooter and provided him with the information required to equip himself for the deadly shooting.

Even though both Reddit and YouTube sought a dismissal of the case, claiming that their platforms only hosted third-party content, Erie County Supreme Court Justice Paula Feroleto ordered the case to move forward with the argument that third-party content could plausibly be considered product of the sites.

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New lawsuit claims Buffalo shooter was allegedly radicalized by YouTube and Reddit

With the Justice Department advocating the death penalty for the 2022 Buffalo shooter Payton Gendron, the survivors of his attack are pursuing multiple lawsuits against factors that allegedly influenced and enabled Gendron to carry out his massacre. The non-profit group Everytown for Gun Safety, alongside civil rights lawyers from Bonner & Bonner and Ryder Law firms, filed two lawsuits on Tuesday, March 12.

The first lawsuit was filed on behalf of 65-year-old Celestine Chaney's son Wayne Jones. Celestine was shot and killed by Gendron. The second lawsuit was filed on behalf of 16 people who went through drastic emotional distress when they witnessed the attack and still endured life-altering severe trauma from it.

The defendants named in both lawsuits are the same. These were the people or institutions that reportedly facilitated, enabled or failed to prevent Gendron's attack. The lawsuit named YouTube and parent companies Alphabet Inc. Google and Reddit Inc. as defendants and claimed that both of them reportedly operated a "defectively designed social media product". The lawsuit claims that YouTube:

"Addicted the shooter, contributed to his radicalization and helped him acquire information he needed to equip himself for and carry out the mass shooting,"

The information in question referred to video instructions on removing the magazine lock from his gun, and further instructions on how to defeat and kill a guard in a gunfight, along with the instructions required to conduct a mass shooting.

The lawsuit also similarly alleged that Reddit further radicalized the Buffalo shooter and gave him information on how to carry out the shooting, including information on the combat-style body armor he used.

Both companies hit back and claimed that they reportedly simply hosted third-party content on their platforms and hence were not liable to govern such content according to federal law. However, Erie County Supreme Court Justice Paula Feroleto claimed that an argument could be made for such content being products of the platforms and ordered the case to move forward.

The other defendants named in the lawsuit include Vintage Firearms, the company that sold Gendron his AR-15-like gun, and magazine-lock manufacturer MEAN Arms LLC, who manufactured and equipped the gun with an easy-to-remove lock

The easy-to-remove lock apparently allowed the Buffalo shooter to use a removable 30-pound magazine in his AR-15 assault weapon, giving him possession of a large-capacity assault weapon, which is illegal in New York. The lawsuit also named the manufacturer of Gendron's combat-grade body armor RMA Armament.

The body armor allowed the Buffalo shooter to allegedly be unaffected by defensive fire from store security. The lawsuit alleged that the armor was sold to him without verification or vetting.

The lawsuit finally named the Buffalo shooter's parents Paul and Pamela Gendron as defendants and alleged that they disregarded warning signs regarding their son, including an instance where Payton reportedly threatened to commit a murder-suicide a year before and even stabbed and decapitated a cat.

The suit also cites that the parents allowed Gendron to bring home guns and body armor and reportedly failed to use the state's Red Flag law to disarm their son.