Meta back in court over white supremacist mass shooting in Buffalo

New York's Court of Appeals spent more than two hours Tuesday weighing whether Meta and other platforms can be sued over Payton Gendron's 2022 Buffalo supermarket shooting that killed 10 Black shoppers. Plaintiffs' attorneys argued the case isn't about the hateful content Gendron consumed, which is protected under Section 230, but about addictive design features that kept him engaged with it. Judges pushed back with hypotheticals about cat videos and travel vlogs, questioning whether addiction alone, absent the content, would produce the same outcome.

Meta's attorney told the court the plaintiffs' theory is really about content dressed up as a design complaint, and compared it to failed past attempts to hold comic books, music, and video games legally responsible for violence. A mid-level appellate court already sided with the platforms last year, warning that a plaintiff win would gut Section 230 protections broadly. The high court did not rule Tuesday; Gendron is serving a life sentence on state charges and faces a separate federal trial, with jury selection starting in October.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.