New Mexico Accuses Snapchat Of Facilitating Child Abuse Content In New Lawsuit

New Mexico has filed a lawsuit against Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, accusing the platform's policies and design features of enabling the distribution of child sexual exploitation material.

Snapchat, widely popular among teens and younger users, is known for its messages that vanish after 24 hours.

The lawsuit claims a months-long investigation revealed Snapchat as a key platform for sextortion, where predators coerce minors into sharing explicit content under threat of exposure.

As part of its investigation, the state's Department of Justice opened a decoy Snapchat account for a 14-year-old named Heather, which exchanged messages with an account called "child.rape" and others with explicit names.

Investigators discovered 10,000 records linking Snap to child sexual abuse content on dark web platforms, stating that Snapchat was "the largest source of images and videos among the dark web sites investigated".