A teenage girl has sued Snapchat, an instant video-messaging app, for failing to prevent her sexual exploitation on its platform when she was 12-years-old.
The girl, now 16-years-old, identified as L.W. to shield her identity, has accused Snapchat of failing to create a platform that could protect its users from “egregious harm” in a class-action lawsuit filed in California on Monday.
L.W. claims a man she met on Snapchat allegedly began requesting nude photos from her. The man reassured her that he was a friend and thought she was attractive. The man allegedly saved the girl’s Snapchat photographs and videos and shared them with others on the internet. According to an inquiry, the man, a member of the military, was convicted in a military court last year on child pornography and sexual assault accusations.
The lawsuit seeks $5 million in damages and demands the corporation invest more in preventing exploitation. In a statement, attorney Juyoun Han stated, “We cannot expect the same companies that benefit from children being harmed to go and protect them.” The girl’s attorney continued, “That is what the law is for.”
The man also used an app called “Chitter” to allegedly spread the girl’s photographs. Both Google and Apple hosted the app. Because of this, Google and Apple are also named as defendants in the case. Both platforms have since removed the app from their stores.
Snapchat’s parent company Snap has defended the app’s core features of self-deleting messages and real-time video conversations, claiming that they allow young people to talk candidly about crucial aspects of their lives.
The legal challenge adds to the evidence that the country’s lack of tech regulation has put young people at risk, according to Brian Levine, a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst who researches children’s online safety and digital forensics and is not involved in the litigation.
“While we cannot comment on active litigation, this is tragic, and we are glad the perpetrator has been caught and convicted,” said Rachel Racusen, a Snap spokeswoman. “Nothing is more important to us than the safety of our community.”
