Attorney General Raul Torrez Files Lawsuit Against Snap, Inc. to Protect Children from Sextortion, Sexual Exploitation and Other Harms

Attorney General Raul Torrez announced he is filing a lawsuit against Snap, Inc. to protect children from sextortion, sexual exploitation, and harm. In the lawsuit, the New Mexico Department of Justice describes how Snapchat’s policies, seemingly ephemeral content, and recommendation algorithm promote the sharing of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and facilitate the sexual exploitation of children.

“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 Torrez. “Snap misled users into believing that photos and videos sent on its platform would disappear, but predators can permanently capture this content, creating a virtual yearbook of sexual images of children that are traded, sold, and stored indefinitely. Through our lawsuit against Meta and Snap, the New Mexico Department of Justice will continue to hold these platforms accountable for prioritizing profit over child safety.”

The New Mexico Department of Justice has been investigating Snap’s platforms in recent months. The complaint against Snap alleges, among other things:

• Due to its design features, Snapchat is a primary platform that criminals use to conduct sextortion. Sextortion, one of the fastest-growing crimes targeting young people, often occurs when a predator poses as a peer of the victim and coerces a minor into sending explicit images or videos of themselves, then threatens to distribute the private material unless the minor pays the predator. Tragically, sextortion has led to countless teen suicides.
• Sextortion is so common and easy for predators to perform on Snapchat that criminals are distributing sextortion scripts that offer manuals for victimizing minors. While these sextortion scripts are publicly available, these scripts “have not yet been blacklisted by . . . Snapchat” and are “actively used against victims today.”
• 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 interactions on Snapchat than on any other platform, and more victims of sex trafficking are recruited on Snapchat than on any other platform.
• An undercover investigation conducted by the New Mexico DOJ uncovered a massive network of dark web sites dedicated to sharing stolen, non-consensual sexual images from Snap. In the past year alone, more than 10,000 records tied to Snap and CSAM were found, including information about minors under the age of 13 being sexually abused. Snapchat was by far the largest source of images and videos among the dark web sites investigated.
• Undercover investigators from the New Mexico Department of Justice discovered that many Snapchat accounts that captured, distributed and sold sexually abusive material directly on Snapchat’s platform were connected to each other through Snapchat’s recommendation algorithm.
• As part of the undercover investigation, the New Mexico DOJ set up a fake Snapchat account for a 14-year-old named Heather, who found and exchanged messages with these dangerous accounts, including accounts with the names “child.rape” and “pedo_lover10,” among others that were even more explicit. Several of these accounts attempted to coerce the underage persona into sharing CSAM.
• Snap has designed its platform specifically to be addictive to young people, which has led to depression, anxiety, sleep deprivation, body dysmorphia and other mental health issues for some users.
• Snapchat is one of the most popular social media platforms for teens in the United States. In fact, over 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 of Justice is taking this action because Snapchat has endangered the health and safety of New Mexico’s youth. As detailed in the complaint, Alejandro Marquez pleaded guilty in 2023 and was sentenced to 18 years in prison after Albuquerque police confirmed he raped an 11-year-old girl he met through Snapchat’s “Quick Add” feature and messaged her on the platform.

The complaint further alleges that Snapchat’s features, algorithms, and policies fail its young users. For example, many teens believe they are protected by Snapchat’s “disappearing” photos and videos, which attracts predators to the site who can easily, covertly, and permanently capture explicit content. Additionally, Snapchat does not verify users, and thus cannot prevent minors from accessing illegal and inappropriate content. On Snapchat, as the complaint describes, sexually explicit material and predators are often recommended to minors.

The New Mexico Department of Justice also alleges that Snap and its executives misled the public about the security of the platform, including during congressional testimony and in an ad during the 2024 Super Bowl that declared the platform “more private” and “less permanent” than other social media platforms.

The New Mexico Department of Justice filed suit against Snap, Inc., just months after it secured a major victory in its lawsuit against Meta. In the case against Meta, which centers on the platform’s role in facilitating the sexual exploitation of children, the judge denied Meta’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, including rejecting Meta’s argument that Section 230 provided the company with immunity from the alleged misconduct.

The New Mexico Department of Justice has developed and compiled tools to help teens and parents protect themselves and their families from the dangers of social media platforms.

The original source can be found here.