Scott Olson | Getty Images
New Mexico Attorney General Files Lawsuit Against Instantalleging that the design and algorithmic recommendations of its social media app Snapchat “openly encourage and promote illicit sexual material involving children and facilitate sextortion and the trafficking of children, drugs and firearms.”
The complaint calls Snapchat “a breeding ground for predators who collect sexually explicit images of children and then find, groom and extort them.”
New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez, who has a lawsuit pending against the owner of Facebook Meta for allegedly enabling the sexual exploitation of children, said in a statement: “Snap misled users into believing that photos and videos submitted to their platform would disappear, but predators can permanently capture this content and have created a virtual repository of child sexual images that are traded, sold and stored indefinitely.
“Through our litigation against Meta and Snap, the New Mexico Department of Justice will continue to hold these platforms accountable for prioritizing profits over children’s safety,” Torrez said.
New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez discusses the connection between public safety, mental health and adverse childhood experiences during a news conference following a summit in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Friday, Nov. 3, 2023.
Susan Montoya Bryan | AP
CNBC has asked Snap for comment on Torrez’s lawsuit, which was filed in Santa Fe County First Judicial District Court.
The complaint alleges that Snap “repeatedly made statements to the public about the security and design of its platforms that it knew to be false” or that were contradicted by the company’s own internal findings.
“Snap was specifically aware of, but failed to warn children and parents about, the ‘rampant’ and ‘massive’ sextortion on its platform – a problem so severe that it drives children facing relentless and unrelenting blackmail demands or disclosure of intimate images to family and friends to suicide,” the complaint states.
The New Mexico Department of Justice, led by Torrez, conducted an investigation in recent months that uncovered the existence of a “vast network of dark web sites dedicated to sharing stolen, nonconsensual sexual images on Snap” and the existence of more than 10,000 records related to SNAP and child sexual abuse material “in the last year alone,” the department said.
The lawsuit alleges violations of New Mexico’s Unfair Trade Practices Act.
– Additional reporting by Josephine Rozzelle
cnbc
