New Mexico AG sues Snapchat, says it is aware of ‘rampant’ sextortion

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez said Tuesday, Oct. 1, that internal Snapchat documents show the company knew sextortion was widespread on the social media platform but did nothing to stop it. The documents, which are part of an ongoing lawsuit, were not redacted Tuesday.

In the lawsuit, Torrez alleged that Snapchat’s parent company, Snap, was aware of a “sextortion manual” circulating on the dark web that contained instructions on how to use the Snap Maps feature to find a school. target.

Sextortion occurs when a person induces a victim to send nude or compromising photos of themselves and then threatens the victim to make the images public unless the victim pays money or provides sexual favors.

The lawsuit also says that Snap employees were aware of 10,000 reports of sextortion involving the platform in 2022 alone, and an internal company email acknowledged that the reports were likely only a “fraction of this abuse ” represented.

The lawsuit also alleges that multiple reports of extortion and grooming against the same users were largely ignored. It also claims that internal data collected by Snap shows that about a third of young users had been exposed to unwanted contact.

The New Mexico AG lawsuit also alleges that Snap openly promotes child trafficking and the sale of illegal drugs and weapons.

Snapchat responded to the filing in a statement on its website on Tuesday, saying: “We designed Snapchat as a place to interact with a close circle of friends, with built-in safety bars, and made conscious design choices to make it difficult for strangers. to detect minors on our service.”