Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, PRIVACY NEWS: New Mexico alleges Snap exposes children to sextortion, trafficking, (Sep 9, 2024)

By Lynn Stanton, TR Daily

According to the complaint, Snap intentionally designed its platform to be addicting to young people.

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez (D.) has filed a lawsuit again Snap, Inc., alleging that the “[n]early every aspect” of the company’s Snapchat app “was designed to attract and addict young people” and that its “design and algorithmic recommendations openly foster and promote illicit sexual material involving children and facilitate sextortion and the trafficking of children, drugs, and guns.”

The state’s complaint asks for civil penalties up to $5,000 for each violation of the state’s Unfair Practices Act and “disgorgement of profits and data that were unjustly obtained.” It also asks for an injunction against the company “and its employees, officers, directors, agents, assigns, successors, subsidiaries, and other persons acting in concert or participation with it, from engaging in unfair, unconscionable, or deceptive practices in violation of New Mexico law” and an order “that Snap abate the public nuisance caused by Snap’s unreasonable and or/unlawful conduct.”

In a heavily redacted filing with the First Judicial District Court, County of Santa Fe, New Mexico, AG Torrez said, “Snap’s business model of profit over child safety and business practices of misrepresenting the amount of dangerous material and conduct to which its platform exposes children violates New Mexico law. Snap should be held accountable for the harms it has inflicted on New Mexico’s children and be required to make its platform as safe for children as the law requires.”

In a press release, AG Torrez said, “Our undercover investigation revealed that Snapchat’s harmful design features create an environment where predators can easily target children through sextortion schemes and other forms of sexual abuse. Snap has misled users into believing that photos and videos sent on their platform will disappear, 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. 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.”

New Mexico filed a lawsuit against Meta Platforms, Inc., and its chief executive officer, Mark Zuckerberg late last year over the treatment of children on Meta’s Facebook and Instagram platforms, failing to protect them “from sexual abuse, online solicitation, and human trafficking” (TR Daily, Dec. 6, 2023). The AG’s press release noted that the judge in that case in May rejected Meta’s motion to dismiss the case, allowing the state to proceed on all grounds it had cited in its lawsuit, including consumer protection and public nuisance claims. The judge also denied Meta’s claims of immunity under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Regarding the current case, the AG’s press release said that “Snapchat is a primary social media platform for sharing child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Parents report that their children share more CSAM on Snapchat than on any other platform, minors report having more online sexual interaction on Snapchat than any other platform, and more sex trafficking victims are recruited on Snapchat than on any other platform.”

It added, “An undercover investigation carried out by the New Mexico DOJ revealed a vast network of dark web sites dedicated to sharing stolen, non-consensual sexual images from Snap—finding more than 10,000 records related to Snap and CSAM in the last year alone, including information related to minors younger than 13 being sexually assaulted. Snapchat was by far the largest source of images and videos among the dark web sites investigated.”

Companies: Snap Inc.

News: Privacy StateUnfairTradePractices NewMexicoNews