Opinion by Lindley, J.P.:

These consolidated appeals arise from four separate actions commenced in response to the mass shooting on May 14, 2022 at a grocery store in a predominately Black neighborhood in Buffalo. The shooter, a teenager from the Southern Tier of New York, spent months planning the attack and was motivated by the Great Replacement Theory, which posits that white populations in Western countries are being deliberately replaced by non-white immigrants and people of color. After driving more than 200 miles from his home to Buffalo, the shooter arrived at the store and opened fire on Black individuals in the parking lot and inside the store with a Bushmaster XM-15 semiautomatic rifle, killing 10 people and wounding three others.

The shooter fired approximately 60 rounds from high-capacity magazines attached to his rifle, upon which he had written several racist messages, including "Here's your reparations!" and "Buck status: Broken." Apprehended at the scene, the shooter was charged with multiple felonies in both state court and federal court, where prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. The shooter pleaded guilty in state court to 10 counts of intentional murder and has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. As of this writing, the federal charges are still pending.

Plaintiffs in these civil actions are survivors of the attack and family members of the victims, while defendants include the shooter's parents and numerous other parties whose actions or inactions allegedly played a role in the shooting. We are concerned in these appeals only with plaintiffs' causes of action against the so-called "social media defendants," i.e., Meta Platforms, Inc., formerly known as Facebook (Facebook); Instagram LLC (Instagram); Snap, Inc. (Snap); Alphabet, Inc.; Google, LLC (Google); YouTube, LLC (YouTube); Discord, Inc. (Discord); Reddit, Inc.; Twitch Interactive, Inc. (Twitch); Amazon.com, Inc. (Amazon); and 4chan Community Support, LLC (4chan), all of whom have social media platforms that were used by the shooter at some point before or during the attack.

The complaints, amended complaint and second amended complaint (hereafter complaints) in these actions assert various tort causes of action against the social media defendants, including negligence, unjust enrichment and strict products liability based on defective design and failure to warn. According to plaintiffs, the social media platforms in question are defectively designed to include content-recommendation algorithms that fed a steady stream of racist and violent content to the shooter, who over time became motivated to kill Black people. Plaintiffs further allege that the content-recommendation algorithms addicted the shooter to the social media defendants' platforms, resulting in his isolation and radicalization, and that the platforms were designed to stimulate engagement by exploiting the neurological vulnerabilities of users like the shooter and thereby maximize profits.

Although plaintiffs recognize that some of the social media defendants—e.g., 4chan, Discord, Twitch and Snap—do not use content-recommendation algorithms, they nevertheless allege that the platforms of those defendants are designed with the same core defect contained in the platforms of the social media defendants that use such algorithms: namely, they are designed to be addictive. According to plaintiffs, the addictive features of the social media platforms include "badges," "streaks," "trophies," and "emojis" given to frequent users, thereby fueling engagement. The shooter's addiction to those platforms, the theory goes, ultimately caused him to commit mass murder.

The social media defendants moved to dismiss the complaints against them for failure to state a cause of action (see CPLR 3211 [a] [7]), contending, inter alia, that they are immune from liability under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (section 230) (see 47 USC § 230 [c] [1], [2]) and the First Amendment of the Federal Constitution, applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. Supreme Court denied the relevant motions, leading to these appeals. We conclude that the complaints should be dismissed against the social media defendants.

Plaintiffs concede that, despite its abhorrent nature, the racist content consumed by the shooter on the Internet is constitutionally protected speech under the First Amendment, and that the social media defendants cannot be held liable for publishing such content. Plaintiffs further concede that, pursuant to section 230, the social media defendants cannot be held liable merely because the shooter was motivated by racist and violent third-party content published on their platforms. According to plaintiffs, however, the social media defendants are not entitled to protection under section 230 because the complaints seek to hold them liable as product designers, not as publishers of third-party content.

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(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5755625&forum_id=2],#49137569)

what else is there to even say on the subject

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5755625&forum_id=2],#49137580)