A lawsuit filed in Alameda state court Thursday by the sister of a slain federal officer alleges Meta, parent company of Facebook, is responsible for the death by radicalizing the killer and connecting him to other extremists via the company's social media platform.
The lawsuit was filed in Alameda County Superior Court on behalf of Angela Underwood Jacobs, whose brother Dave Patrick Underwood was shot and killed in May 2020 while guarding a federal courthouse in Oakland during protests over the murder of George Floyd.
Steven Carrillo, then an active sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, is currently facing federal murder charges over the slaying. Robert Alvin Justus Jr., who prosecutors allege drove the van from which Carrillo opened fire, is also facing federal criminal charges over the killing.
Federal complaints have tied both to the online "Boogaloo" group, a far-right anti-government extremist movement which advocates for a second civil war and whose supporters wear Hawaiian shirts and often appear heavily armed.
"We've banned more than 1,000 militarized social movements from our platform and work closely with experts to address the broader issue of internet radicalization," Meta spokesman Kevin McAlister said in an emailed statement. "These claims are without legal basis."
The company said in an update in November that the company had taken down 4,000 pages and 20,600 groups related to militarized social movements, along with identifying more than 1,00 militarized movements on its site.
The lawsuit argues those actions were too little and too late.
"Facebook bears responsibility for the murder of my brother," Angela Underwood Jacobs, the sister of slain officer Dave Patrick Underwood, said in a statement.
The complaint says Underwood Jacobs is seeking damages in excess of $25,000.
Professor Eric Goldman at Santa Clara University School of Law said he was skeptical the case would succeed for several reasons.
"I've seen dozens like this, and they don't win," Goldman said, noting that courts had rejected the assertion in the past that website algorithms and their authors are liable for offline activity.
He said establishing causation and responsibility was a high bar to clear and that the law differentiates between "but for" and "proximate" cause.
"Gun and bullet manufacturers are all the 'but for' causes, but they don't pull the trigger," Goldman said. "The person who pulled the trigger, that's the proximate cause."
Federal investigators have alleged that Carrillo and Justus were connected through Facebook and arranged to meet ahead of carrying out the killing.
Carrillo and Justus had never met in person before carrying out the killing, the new case said, adding, "Their paths had no reason to cross outside of Facebook." The case alleges that Facebook's proprietary algorithms, including those that suggest friends and groups on the site, fostered the environment that led to the killing.
Underwood's attorney, Ted Leopold at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, said he fully expects the company to invoke the protections of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects sites like Facebook from liability for what people publish on them. He said he believes the facts of this case are different.
"Facebook is generating the ability and bringing people together in the same conversations," through its technology and suggestion algorithms, Leopold said. "Without the benefit of these types of algorithms it would be, I daresay, impossible for them to exist in that form," he said, noting the Boogaloo group might not exist in its current form otherwise.
Changes to Section 230 have drawn support from both sides of the political aisle, and even Facebook, now Meta, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has expressed support for changes to the shield wielded by his company and others.
Goldman, the law professor, said even if the plaintiffs were able to get around those protections with their arguments, the First Amendment could also be applied since it protects conversations like the one that led to the murder. "In the end it's trying to change how internet services limit third-party content," he said, adding that algorithms are squarely covered by the First Amendment.
Goldman said he was concerned by what the internet would look like if the plaintiff's side is successful, adding any person who has suffered harm they can attribute to an online activity could potentially come after a company in court.
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