YouTube Is Sued, Accused of Enabling Mass Shooting By Not Censoring Hateful Content

If you’re tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. Tech giants Alphabet, Google and its subsidiary YouTube, together with Reddit, find themselves embroiled in legal action linked to a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York in 2022. The litigation alleges that the platforms fostered an environment promoting “extreme and harmful” content, which supposedly played a significant role in preparing the shooter for his racist attack that left ten individuals of color dead. Regular readers will already be following how a mass shooting is being used to pressure social media platforms to censor and will have already anticipated this type of lawsuit. We covered this in important detail within the last month. The shooting, committed by Payton Gendron who was 18 at the time, happened in a supermarket where the victims were shopping. Litigation brought forward by Wayne Jones, son of victim Celestine Chaney, along with an additional lawsuit filed on behalf of the victims’ families and employees from the day of the attack, collectively stress that Gendron’s journey toward the racially driven theories may not have occurred but for his exposure to them on the aforementioned social media platforms. Often these platforms are targeted for their controversial algorithms, which critics decry for promoting extreme and divisive content due to its ability to spur user engagement. The lawsuit cites Gendron’s near-constant use of these platforms, arguing that they fed him an unlimited supply of harmful, radicalizing content that shaped his extreme beliefs. The lawsuits…YouTube Is Sued, Accused of Enabling Mass Shooting By Not Censoring Hateful Content