Lawsuit aiming to protect children filed against Meta, Snap
American Psychological Assoc.: Typical American teen spends close to five hours a day on social media
(InvestigateTV) — The New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez recently filed suit against Meta and Snap, Inc. in an effort to protect children.
“What people need to understand is that whenever they’re handing a device to a child in their home, they are in effect handing an opportunity for a predator in the community, anywhere in the world to identify that child,” Torrez said.
Torrez has made it his mission to protect children from online dangers.
“The way that the social media landscape has evolved—is simply not safe for children,” he stated.
The lawsuits allege that Snapchat’s policies and recommendation algorithm foster the sharing of child sexual abuse material and facilitate child sexual exploitation.
As part of his case against Meta, Torrez carried out an undercover investigation, creating decoy s of children 14 years and under.
“We created a decoy profile of what appeared to be, you know, a young, a young girl on the platform is actually one of our undercover agents,” Torrez explained. “And it was astonishing the speed with which she was ed and solicited for sex.”
Torrez wants to see legislative action from Congress to strengthen security on social media.
In the meantime, he recommends parents actively monitor their children’s online activity and to discuss the importance of not sharing private information with strangers.
Our national investigative team reached out to Snap, Inc. and Meta for comment A Meta spokesperson said in a statement that it has developed new tools for parents and teens.
In particular the company says its created “teen s” on Instagram. Those s limit who can them and what content they see.
In response to this story, a Snapchat spokesperson provided two previous statements issued in September 2024 and October 2024 (put the link to each statement on the month/year text).
The full copy of each statement can be read below:
The Snapchat spokesperson additionally noted that a motion was filed on Thursday, November 21, 2024, aiming to dismiss the lawsuit filed by New Mexico’s AG.
Snapchat’s response included the following details about its motion for dismissal:
- “Sexual exploitation is both horrifying and illegal. It has no place on Snapchat and those who abuse Snapchat or its s must be brought to justice.”
- “Of course, Snap cannot prevent all bad actors from doing bad acts – any more so than law enforcement has been able to completely eradicate lawlessness. But Snap works hard to do its part, working hand-in-hand with rank and file law enforcement officers who routinely praise the company’s efforts.”
- “Unfortunately, here the New Mexico Attorney General (“the State” or “Plaintiff” has chosen not to prioritize its officers’ work with Snap to continue strengthening its defenses against bad actors, but instead to work with private, contingency-fee counsel to sue Snap."
- “The Complaint that the State’s counsel pens is based on dated and cherry-picked reports, references to and long since discontinued platform features, reliance upon dubious “evidence” mined from the dark web, salacious screenshots from other platforms to describe conduct on Snapchat, and gross mischaracterizations of both its “decoy” ’s interactions on the platform and internal documents."
- “Somehow, the State warps Snap’s commitment to complying with its legal obligations into a false claim that Snap’s employees and its CEO do not care about combating these harms.”
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