The families of three victims killed in the 2022 mass shooting at a Buffalo grocery store filed a suit against the social media companies they claim radicalized the teenage gunman, two days before the tragedy’s one-year anniversary.
The lawsuit filed on behalf of the families of Heyward Patterson, Katherine Massey, and Andre Mackniel — three of the 10 people killed in the massacre at Tops Supermarket on May 14, 2022 — named Meta, the parent company of Facebook, as a defendant, as well as Snapchat, Discord, Reddit, 4chan and YouTube.
It also named Amazon, which owns Twitch, the site confessed killer Payton Gendron used to livestream the massacre.
“Gendron was motivated to commit his heinous crime by racist, anti-Semitic, and white supremacist propaganda fed to him by the social media companies whose products he used,” the lawsuit claims.
The lawsuit filed Friday in the State Supreme Court in Buffalo also names his parents, Paul and Paula Gendron, gun dealer, Vintage Firearms, and the company the teen bought his body armor from, RMA Armament, as defendants.
Gendron, now 19, pleaded guilty to charges that included murder and domestic terrorism last November and was sentenced to life in prison without parole in February.
“I’m hoping that something will come out of it. Every day or every few days, all you hear about is a mass shooting,” Massey’s sister, Barbara Massey Mapps, told ABC News.
“You’ve got to start somewhere, in order for them to get the message. These big companies only know one thing, money. So, you’ve got to hurt them. How many people do you want to see dead?”
The lawsuit alleges Gendron became “addicted” to Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat, which presented him with increasingly disturbing content in the lead-up to the shooting.
“Taking full advantage of the incomplete development of Gendron’s frontal lobe, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat maintained his product engagement by directing him to increasingly extreme and violent content which, upon information and belief, promoted racism, anti-Semitism, and gun violence,” the lawsuit claims.
The lawsuit goes on to allege that the social media companies pushed Gendron toward more hateful content due to algorithms designed to maximize engagement.
“The social media platforms that Gendron encountered are equipped with sophisticated algorithms designed to addict teenage users by taking advantage of their incomplete brain development and maintain their engagement through increasingly extreme and psychologically discordant content,” the lawsuit alleges.
The filing comes after New York Attorney General Letitia James released a report in October alleging social media sites, including some named in the lawsuit, played roles in the shooting by radicalizing Gendron.
“We have a zero-tolerance policy for hate speech and discrimination of any kind,” Snapchat said in a statement to ABC News. “We deliberately designed Snapchat differently than traditional social media platforms and don’t allow unvetted content to go viral or be algorithmically promoted.”
RMA Armament, the company Gendron bought his body armor from, said it was surprised to be included in the lawsuit.
“RMA Armament products are intended for the protection of law-abiding private citizens, police departments and government partners,” President Blake Waldrop said in a statement. “We are surprised to be named in this lawsuit and believe the claim lacks merit. We do understand this has been a difficult and painful year for the families and the Buffalo community.”
Google also issued a statement addressing the filing.
“We have the deepest sympathies for the victims and families of the horrific attack at Tops grocery store in Buffalo last year,” the company said. “Through the years, YouTube has invested in technology, teams, and policies to identify and remove extremist content. We regularly work with law enforcement, other platforms, and civil society to share intelligence and best practices.”
