Everytown Law Files Appellate Brief in Buffalo Mass Shooting Case, Claims YouTube and Reddit Are Not Entitled to Immunity or Constitutional Protection for Product Features that Feed Addiction and Violence
1.22.2025
NEW YORK – Everytown Law, along with Tycko & Zavareei and Bonner & Bonner, on Tuesday filed an appellate brief in their cases seeking to hold Reddit and YouTube accountable for their roles in addicting and radicalizing the Buffalo mass shooter. On appeal, Everytown Law defends the trial court’s ruling, which allowed survivors of the mass shooting to proceed with their cases against the social media defendants and held that the social media companies are not insulated from liability for dangerous features of their products which fuel addiction and violence. The appeal is pending in the Appellate Division, Fourth Department in New York.
“The clock is ticking for social media companies who have skirted accountability for far too long,” said Eric Tirschwell, Executive Director of Everytown Law. “Our clients are entitled to prosecute their cases and obtain information showing the pivotal role that YouTube and Reddit played in addicting and radicalizing the Tops Friendly Market mass shooter, who in turn targeted, killed and traumatized innocent members of Buffalo’s Black community.”
The complaints detailed the ways in which these defendants’ products addicted the shooter, conditioning him to become radicalized and indoctrinating him into white supremacist conspiracy theories that motivated his attack. The complaint also detailed the link between the defendants’ products and the shooter’s ability to acquire and effectively use an illegal assault weapon banned under New York law and to equip that weapon with removable magazines.
In March 2024, a judge in the Erie County Supreme Court denied motions to dismiss filed by YouTube and Reddit in a first-of-its-kind ruling, allowing lawsuits seeking to hold social media defendants accountable for their role in radicalizing or equipping a mass shooter to proceed to discovery.
The trial court found that the plaintiffs sufficiently alleged that Reddit and YouTube are “products” that are specifically designed to addict and radicalize users, and that they provided the shooter with the equipment and training he needed to commit the deadly attack. The Court found that neither Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act nor the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects such behavior.
Significantly, the court also explicitly recognized that people who are traumatized by a mass shooting, even if they are not shot, can pursue claims against those responsible and seek to recover emotional damages in court. More information about the lawsuit can be found here.