New Mexico sues Snap over ‘sextortion’ of children by predators

The New Mexico attorney general has filed a lawsuit against Snap, alleging that the social media app Snapchat’s design and algorithmic recommendations “openly promote and incite illegal sexual material involving children and facilitate sextortion and the trafficking of children, drugs and weapons.”

The lawsuit calls Snapchat “a breeding ground for predators who collect, track, manipulate, and extort sexually explicit images of children.”

New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez, who is pursuing a lawsuit against Facebook owner Meta
Alleging that the company facilitates the sexual exploitation of children, it said in a statement Thursday: “Snap misled users into believing that photos and videos sent on its platform would disappear, but predators can permanently capture this content and have created 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 putting profits ahead of children’s safety,” Torrez said.