Snapchat’s ‘disappearing’ messages make it easy for predators to target kids, state lawsuit alleges

Snapchat is the app of choice for criminals targeting kids for sextortion or child sexual abuse material (CSAM), New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez alleges in a new lawsuit filed against the app's owner, Snap.

The suit accuses Snap of violating New Mexico law against unfair practices and public nuisance based on design elements like its "disappearing" messages and alleged failure to police predators. "Snap has misled users into believing that photos and videos sent on their platform will disappear," Torrez said in a statement. "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's office ran an undercover investigation similar to an earlier one it carried out against Meta, who it similarly sued for creating a "marketplace for predators." In the investigation, Torrez's office created a decoy Snapchat account that looked like it belonged to a 14-year-old named Heather. That account messaged other Snapchat profiles with names like "child.rape" and "pedo_lover10," according to the attorney general's office, which said several of the accounts tried to persuade the decoy into sharing CSAM.

Snap's claims that its app is "more private" and "less permanent" than other social media apps is misleading, the attorney general alleges. While the app's disappearing message feature may lead kids and teens to believe their photos are ephemeral, the attorney general claims they're easily and frequently captured by predators. Torrez's office said it found more than 10,000 records related to Snap and CSAM on the dark web in 2023 and added that "Snapchat was by far the largest source of images and videos among the dark web sites investigated."

Torrez is repeating a strategy that has so far yielded success in his litigation against Meta by targeting the design of Snapchat's product and thereby (in theory) avoiding some thornier questions about speech. Torrez says that Snapchat's design features, including its disappearing messages and "Quick Add" button that let predators message minors, help make it "a primary platform used by criminals to carry out sextortion." In the suit against Meta, a judge said the complaint could not be dismissed on the grounds of Section 230, the legal liability shield that protects tech platforms from being held responsible for their users' speech.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals also recently handed down a legal victory for suits based on misleading product claims. It allowed a lawsuit to proceed against a Snapchat-based anonymous messaging app called Yolo, saying the app had falsely promised it would expose the accounts of harassing users.

In this Snap lawsuit, Torrez is asking the court to order the company to stop its allegedly illegal behavior, pay penalties, and disgorge any unjustly obtained profits. Snap spokesperson Russ Caditz-Peck said in a statement that the company is reviewing the lawsuit and would respond in court. "We share Attorney General Torrez's and the public's concerns about the online safety of young people and are deeply committed to Snapchat being a safe and positive place for our entire community, particularly for our younger users," Caditz-Peck said.