According to the company, the New Mexico Attorney General actively sought out child pedophiles on its digital platform.
In a document that asks the court to dismiss the state’s action, Snap has accused the attorney general of New Mexico of purposely searching for adult users who are looking for sexually explicit information in order to make its app appear to be harmful. In the paper that was distributed by The Verge, the corporation expressed doubts about the authenticity of the claims made by the authorities. According to the office of the attorney general, while it was using a fake account that was claimed to be owned by a girl who was 14 years old, it was actually added by a user who goes by the name Enzo (Nud15Ans). As a result of this link, the app allegedly suggested more than 91 people, some of whom were adults looking for sexual content. The motion to dismiss that Snap submitted, on the other hand, stated that those “allegations are patently false.”
The corporation stated that the decoy account was the one that looked for Enzo and added him to the account. The operatives of the attorney general were also the ones who searched for and added accounts with usernames that were deemed to be problematic, such as “nudenude_22” and “xxx_tradehot.” In addition to this, Snap is asserting that the office has “repeatedly mischaracterized” its internal documents. During the course of its lawsuit, the office reportedly referred to a document when it stated that the corporation “consciously decided not to store child sex abuse images” and when it implied that the company did not report and provide the images to law authorities. Snap has reiterated that it is not permitted to store child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) on its systems, and it has disputed that this was the case. Additionally, it stated that it provides the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children with the documents in question.
The arguments presented by the company did not leave the director of communications at the New Mexico Department of Justice with a favorable impression. Lauren Rodriguez accused Snap of focusing on the insignificant elements of the inquiry in an effort to “distract from the serious issues raised in the State’s case.” The statement was given to The Verge by Lauren Rodriguez. Rodriguez additionally pointed out that “Snap continues to put profits over protecting children” rather than spending time “addressing… critical issues with real change to their algorithms and design features.”
After conducting an investigation that lasted for several months, the state of New Mexico came to the conclusion that the features of Snapchat “foster the sharing of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and facilitate child sexual exploitation.” According to the research, it discovered a “vast network of dark web sites dedicated to sharing stolen, non-consensual sexual images from Snap.” Furthermore, it stated that Snapchat was “by far” the most significant source of photographs and videos on the dark web sites that it had observed. In a statement, the office of the attorney general referred to Snapchat as “a breeding ground for predators to collect sexually explicit images of children and to find, groom, and extort them.” According to the lawsuit filed by the office, Snap personnel are confronted with 10,000 incidents of sextortion every single month. However, the lawsuit claims that the firm does not warn users in order to avoid using the phrase “strike fear” among them. The higher management of Snap was accused of ignoring previous trust and safety personnel who had also advocated for extra safety systems, according to the complaint.