OpenAI Faces 30 New Lawsuits Over Canada School Shooting, Accused of Choosing Silence Over Safety
Students, teachers and a principal from Tumbler Ridge are suing OpenAI in California, claiming the company knew its chatbot was being used to plan violence and said nothing.
Key points
- Thirty new lawsuits were filed in a California federal court on Wednesday against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman by staff and students connected to the Tumbler Ridge school shooting in Canada.
- The lawsuits claim OpenAI's own automated safety system flagged the alleged shooter's conversations with ChatGPT about gun violence, but the company chose not to alert Canadian authorities.
- OpenAI's chief global affairs officer, Chris Lehane, is named in the suits as being involved in a decision to stay silent over concerns about the company's reputation and finances.
- After the suspect's account was flagged, OpenAI allegedly only "deactivated" it rather than issuing a full ban, which the lawsuits claim allowed the suspect to re-register with a new email address and regain access.
- OpenAI's chief strategy officer, Jason Kwon, has publicly called the lawsuits' claims "false."
Thirty new lawsuits landed against OpenAI this week, filed by people who were inside Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in British Columbia when the shooting happened. They're not the first. We covered the April suits brought by victims' families on 2 September in "30 Lawsuits Blame ChatGPT for Tumbler Ridge Mass Shooting That Killed Eight", and both sets make the same core accusation: OpenAI knew something was wrong and did nothing.
What exactly are the lawsuits claiming?
OpenAI's automated review system, software that scans conversations for dangerous content, flagged chats between alleged shooter Jesse Van Rootselaar and ChatGPT that touched on gun violence. OpenAI's safety team then recommended contacting Canadian authorities. The suits allege Chris Lehane, the company's chief global affairs officer, was part of a decision to stay quiet instead, driven by concern for the company's "reputational and financial standing."
The second accusation is simpler to follow. When the account was flagged, OpenAI allegedly "deactivated" it rather than blocking Van Rootselaar across the whole platform. He reportedly signed up again with a different email and kept using the chatbot.
"Providing the Shooter with continued access to this tool constituted substantial assistance in itself," the lawsuits state.
For anyone watching AI accountability cases, the soft-deactivation detail is the one worth tracking: it suggests a gap between what safety teams flag and what product teams actually enforce.
What does OpenAI say?
Jason Kwon, OpenAI's chief strategy officer, posted on X to call the claims "false." He said it's "completely untrue" that safety decisions are shaped by political or public relations pressures.
OpenAI is separately facing a suit from Florida, which accuses the company of aiding attackers in other mass shootings, including one at Florida State University last year.
Common questions
Does this mean ChatGPT is dangerous to use?
For most people, ChatGPT is a general-purpose tool for writing, research and everyday tasks. These lawsuits target a specific alleged failure to act on flagged content, not the chatbot itself.
What could OpenAI have done differently, according to the lawsuits?
The suits argue the company should have alerted Canadian police when its own systems raised the alarm, and should have issued a permanent, platform-wide ban rather than a soft deactivation that was trivially easy to bypass.
