Meta and Activision face lawsuit from families of Uvalde school shooting victims

Families of victims of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, have sued Call of Duty publisher Activision and Meta. They alleged the companies “knowingly exposed the shooter to the weapon.” [he used]conditioned him to see it as the solution to his problems and trained him to use it. The plaintiffs also accused the companies of “chewing up insane teenagers and spitting out mass shooters.”

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs explained that the Uvalde shooter played Call of Duty, which featured an assault rifle made by gunsmith Daniel Defense. They also mentioned that he frequently visited Instagram, which advertised the gun maker's products. The lawsuit also claimed that Instagram provided gun manufacturers “an unsupervised channel to speak directly to minors, at home, at school, even in the middle of the night.” He argued that the shooter was “a poor, isolated teenager” from a small Texas town who had only heard of AR-15s and had only set his sights on them because he had been exposed to this weapon while playing. Call of Duty and visit Instagram. Additionally, he accuses Meta of being more lenient toward gun sellers than other users who violate its rules. Meta prohibits the buying and selling of guns and ammunition, but users can violate this policy 10 times before being banned from its platforms.

“The truth is that the gun industry and Daniel Defense did not act alone. They could not have reached this child without Instagram,” plaintiffs' attorney Josh Koskoff said during a press conference. “They couldn't expose him to the dopamine loop of virtually killing a person. That's what Call of Duty does.” Koskoff's law firm is the same one that reached a $73 million settlement with rifle maker Remington for the families of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

An Activision spokesperson said The Washington Post And Bloomberg Law that “the Uvalde shooting was horrific and heartbreaking in every way” and that the company expresses its deepest condolences to the families, but that “millions of people around the world enjoy video games without turning to horrible acts “.