Snapchat is a dangerous neighborhood for children, a lawsuit filed by the state of New Mexico charges.
“Our undercover investigation revealed that Snapchat’s harmful design features create an environment where predators can easily target children through sextortion schemes and other forms of sexual abuse,” said Attorney General Raúl Torrez.
“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 said.
The filing comes months after the state sued Facebook parent Meta, alleging that platform can also be used for sexual exploitation of children. A judge recently denied Meta’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit – including rejecting Meta’s argument that Section 230 provided the company immunity against the alleged misconduct. That section protects websites from legal action stemming from content posted by the site's users.
"Playbooks for victimizing minors"
Over the last several months, the New Mexico Department of Justice conducted an investigation into Snap’s platforms, and its complaint against Snap states, in part, that:
- Due to its design features, Snapchat is a primary platform used by criminals to carry out sextortion. Sextortion, one of the most rapidly growing crimes targeting young people, often occurs when a predator pretends to be a victim’s peer and coerces a minor into sending explicit images or videos of themselves, and then threatens to distribute this private material unless the minor pays the predator. Tragically, sextortion has caused numerous teen suicides.
- Sextortion is so common and simple for predators to carry out on Snapchat that criminals circulate sextortion scripts that provide playbooks for victimizing minors. Though these sextortion scripts are publicly accessible, these scripts “have not yet been blacklisted by . . . Snapchat” and are “actively being used today against victims.”
- Snapchat is a primary social media platform for sharing child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Parents report that their children share more CSAM on Snapchat than on any other platform, minors report having more online sexual interaction on Snapchat than any other platform, and more sex trafficking victims are recruited on Snapchat than on any other platform.
- An undercover investigation carried out by the New Mexico DOJ revealed a vast network of dark web sites dedicated to sharing stolen, non-consensual sexual images from Snap – finding more than 10,000 records related to Snap and CSAM in the last year alone, including information related to minors younger than 13 being sexually assaulted. Snapchat was by far the largest source of images and videos among the dark web sites investigated.
- As part of the undercover investigation, the New Mexico DOJ set up a decoy Snapchat account for a 14 year-old named Heather, who found and exchanged messages with these dangerous accounts, including ones named “child.rape” and “pedo_lover10,” in addition to others that are even more explicit. Several of these accounts attempted to coerce the underage persona into sharing CSAM.
- Snap designed its platform specifically to make it addicting to young people, which has led some of its users to depression, anxiety, sleep deprivation, body dysmorphia, and other mental health issues.
- Snapchat is one of the most popular social media platforms for teens in the United States. In fact, more than 20 million teens in the U.S. use Snapchat, and half of all teens in the U.S. use Snapchat every day.
The New Mexico Department Justice said Snapchat has endangered the health and safety of New Mexico’s youth. For example, as detailed in the complaint, in 2023, Alejandro Marquez plead guilty and was sentenced to 18 years in prison after the Albuquerque Police Department confirmed he raped an 11-year-old girl he met through Snapchat’s “Quick Add” feature and messaged her on the platform.