ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Lawyers for social media companies and gun accessory manufacturers are arguing before judges in Rochester that they shouldn’t be legally held responsible for the 2022 Buffalo Tops mass shooting.

Although a lower court judge already ruled that the lawsuits could move forward, the companies are arguing before the New York Court of Appeals, seeking to dismiss the wrongful death lawsuit filed by the families of the victims in the racist attack. The lawsuit says social media fueled the White supremacist conspiracy theories that led Payton Gendron to kill 10 Black people at the grocery store.

The arguments got underway at 1 p.m. The first lawyer to speak represents the manufacturer of a gun magazine lock. Gendron removed that lock to increase the magazine’s capacity before carrying out the shooting with an AR-style rifle.

Attorneys for Meta, Discord, Snapchat, and a handful of other social media companies argued that they are not liable.

“A premeditated murderous rampage is not a foreseeable risk of having a social media service,” said Eric Shumksy, the attorney representing Meta. “There are billions upon billions of interactions on these services and hundreds of millions of people who use them without going on violent, murderous rampages.”

The lawsuit argues that the algorithms of social media fed Gendron increasingly racist, antisemitic, and violence-inducing content. Lawyers say that gave Gendron the expertise to plan and execute the racist attack. If the appeal is denied, the lawsuits will proceed to the discovery phase.

In the lawsuit on behalf of the families, it claims Gendron didn’t grow up in a racist family, but racist, antisemitic and violent messages were pumped into Gendron through the social media sites. It also says the posts he watched provided training for his attack and laid the way for his plan.

You can watch the arguments in this YouTube video:

You can also see the arguments here:

Gendron is serving life in prison on state charges. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in the federal hate crime case.