Complicity of Social Media Companies in Inciting Genocide Hakim leaders, and escaped prosecution only by reason of age and infirmity.”148 Prosecutors had stated that executives at German corporations were instrumental in supporting the Nazi party. In The Zyklon B Case, the British Military Court in Hamburg examined whether a number of German businessmen were complicit in “the murder of interned allied civilians by means of poison gas.”149 The men faced trial for working at a company which supplied the Nazis with Zyklon B, a highly toxic gas used to murder Jews in concentration camps.150 Defendants included the firm’s owner Bruno Tesch, his “second-in-command” Karl Weinbacher, and gassing technician Joachim Drosihn.151 In their defense, Tesch and Weinbacher relied upon the fact that they were not present at the concentration camps.152 The prosecution contended this was immaterial, that knowingly supplying “a commodity to a branch of the State which was using that commodity for the mass extermination” of civilians was illegal.153 Citing reports from the firm’s own employees, prosecutors argued the defendants became aware that Zyklon B gas was being used for the “extermination of human beings” and that “having acquired this knowledge, they continued to arrange supplies of the gas” in “everincreasing quantities.”154 Tesch and Weinbacher were found guilty, while Drosihn was acquitted.155 The Court concluded that Tesch and Weinbacher, as the company’s top executives, materially contributed to the crime when their business continued supplying gas to the Nazis and that they did so knowing the gas would be used to kill human beings.156 In contrast, Drosihn, a mere technician, lacked the authority “to influence the transfer of gas . . . or to prevent it.”157 He was therefore acquitted.158 Beyond the Rome Statute and the relevant precedent, the potential culpability of individuals operating through businesses traces back to earlier treaties. The Genocide Convention unequivocally states that “private individuals” 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 Cassel, supra note 116, at 306. United Kingdom v. Tesch (The Zyklon B Case), Case No. 9, 1 Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals 93 (British Military Court, Hamburg, Germany Mar. 1–8 1946), http://perma.cc/GU9KGLH6. Id. Id. Id. at 97. Id. at 94. Id. Id. at 102. Id. at 101–02. Id. at 102. Id. Summer 2020 105