Meta, Activision sued by Uvalde families over alleged role in mass shootings

Family members of the victims of the Uvalde mass shooting, which claimed 19 lives in May 2022, are suing Meta and Activision for allegedly enabling an “insidious advertising” campaign that have allowed gun manufacturers to cultivate a young consumer base for AR-15 assault rifles. 

The lawsuit argues that in the last 15 years, Activision and Meta have “aided” and “abetted” gun manufacturers’ efforts to expand their market by giving them direct access to their consumer base which includes millions of children. 

Meta boasts 3.98 billion monthly active users base across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp in Q4 2023, according to Statista. Similarly, Activison’s Call of Duty, a top selling game franchise, has sold 425 million copies as of Q3 2023. 

The lawsuit against Activision is based on the premise that the Call of Duty game is allegedly grooming socially vulnerable and insecure teenagers to become gunmen.  

“Call of Duty creates a vividly realistic and addicting theater of violence in which teenage boys learn to kill with frightening skill and ease. It teaches players how to aim, reload, and fire accurately, while habituating the teenage nervous system to inflict repeated, graphic violence,” the lawsuit claims. 

Meta, on the other hand, has been accused of having a  more damaging effect on teenagers. The lawsuit claims that Instagram is  giving gun manufacturers’ an “unsupervised channel” to speak directly to minors and inundate them with content that promotes crime, hypermasculinity, revenge and cult of lone gunman. 

The lawsuit calls Instagram’s anti-gun rules “flimsy” and “easily circumvented” by gunmakers.

To establish a link between the mass shootings and tech companies, the lawsuit cites three of the deadliest recent school shootings: Uvalde, Parkland, and Sandy Hook. In all three cases, the shooters were in the age group of 18-21, were devoted Call of Duty players and used tactical gear and assault rifles during the attacks.

Meta has been accused of not doing enough to protect teenagers and underage users on its platforms. According to sealed court documents made public in November 2023, Meta received more than 1.1 million reports of users below 13 years of age on Instagram since 2019, but only a fraction of those accounts were disabled by the social media giant. 

Though many lawmakers and child safety experts have blamed video games for the rise in mass shootings, there is no evidence that links the two. A 2023 Stanford University study based on a review of 82 medical research articles found no “causal link” between video games and violent behavior.  

Activision also said in a statement that there is no scientific research that shows a causal link between video games and gun violence. 

Image credit: Activision