New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torres’ office announced the lawsuit against Snapchat on Thursday.NYSE:SNAP) alleges that social media companies’ policies, content and recommendation algorithms encourage the sharing of child sexual abuse material and facilitate the sexual abuse of children. Sexual exploitation.
“Our undercover investigation revealed that Snapchat’s harmful design features create an environment where predators can easily target children through sexual blackmail and other sexual abuse.” Attorney General Torres said in a statement..
The statement said Snap leads users to believe that photos and videos sent to its platform disappear, but allows criminals to capture the content permanently, creating a “virtual yearbook of child sexual images” that can be traded, sold and stored indefinitely.
The lawsuit also alleges that Snapchat’s features, algorithms and policies do not meet the needs of young users, and that the company does not verify its users, meaning the platform cannot prevent minors from accessing illegal and inappropriate content.
The New Mexico Department of Justice also alleges that Snap and its executives misled the public about the safety of the platform, including in congressional testimony and in a 2024 Super Bowl ad that proclaimed the platform was “more private” and “less permanent” than other social media platforms.
Snap did not immediately respond to Seeking Alpha’s request for comment.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25697397/STK071_APPLE_N.jpg?w=150&resize=150,150&ssl=1 "Apple is reportedly working on developing “LLM Siri” to compete with ChatGPT")
