Your support helps us to tell the story
New Mexico's attorney general has filed a lawsuit against Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, alleging that its algorithm and site design “foster the sharing of child sexual abuse material and facilitate child sexual exploitation.”
“Snapchat’s harmful design features create an environment where predators can easily target children through sextortion schemes and other forms of sexual abuse,” Attorney General Raúl Torrez said in a press release.
The lawsuit was filed in state court on Thursday.
“Snap has misled users into believing that photos and videos sent on their platform will disappear, but predators can permanently capture this content and they have created a virtual yearbook of child sexual images that are traded, sold, and stored indefinitely,” Torrez added.
In addition to sexual abuse, the lawsuit claims the company also openly promotes child trafficking, drugs and guns.
In a statement, Snap Inc. said it shares Torrez’s and the public’s concerns about the online safety of young people.
“We understand that online threats continue to evolve and we will continue to work diligently to address these critical issues," the company based in Santa Monica, California, said.
“We have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in our trust and safety teams over the past several years, and designed our service to promote online safety by moderating content and enabling direct messaging with close friends and family."
According to the complaint, minors report having more online sexual interactions on Snapchat than any other platform, and more sex trafficking victims are recruited on Snapchat than on any other platform.
Prior to the lawsuit, New Mexico conducted a monthslong undercover investigation into child sexual abuse images on Snapchat. As part of the undercover investigation, the New Mexico Department of Justice set up a decoy Snapchat account for a 14-year-old named Heather, who found and exchanged messages with accounts with names like “child.rape” and “pedo_lover10."
Snapchat, the lawsuit alleges, “was by far the largest source of images and videos among the dark web sites investigated.”
Investigators also found Snapchat accounts that openly circulated and sold child abuse images directly on the platform.
Last December, Torrez filed a similar lawsuit against Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, saying it allows predators to trade child pornography and solicit minors for sex on its platforms. That suit is pending.
Additionally reporting by the Associated Press
