Mahiyar Rohinton Patel, Pune
One of the most popular social media apps in the world: ‘Snapchat’ has been sued by the state of New Mexico over its app being used by sexual predators. The lawsuit against Snap Inc, which is the owner of Snapchat, was announced by New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez. He said that a months-long investigation had found out that Snapchat was the preferred medium of child predators in coercing or extorting minors into sending explicit videos or photos.
Though snapchat’s defining feature is its 24 hour disappearing messages. The investigation by the New Mexico Department of Justice Has found 10,000 records related to Snap Inc and the sexual abuse of children on dark websites. Torrez said “Snapchat is by far the largest source of images and videos among dark websites which were being investigated”.
For its investigation, the investigative agencies of the state opened a bait account of a 14 – year – old girl named heather, which was meant to be used to understand the matrix of child predators operating online. The decoy account soon came in contact with an account called “child.rape”. This unveiled an intricate web of predators trying to solicit sexual material from unwitting minors.
The court case filed says that the design features and algorithm used by Snapchat make it a conducive environment for child sextortion schemes. A number of private citizens and government institutions have tried to sue Snap Inc in relation to it being used to sexually exploit minors but recently the United States Supreme Court declined to hear a teenager’s plea to revive his lawsuit against Snap Inc. The case involves an older woman who tried to solicit sexual material from a minor through snapchat. According to US law Snap Inc was protected under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
The state of New Mexico had in the recent past also sued the social media conglomerate Meta Platforms on very similar charges of failing to protect the online harassment and predation of children. The United States of America has seen calls from across the political spectrum from President Joe Biden and Republican nominee Donald Trump to regulate social media.