Snapchat failed to properly warn against sextortion schemes targeting underage users: lawsuit

Snapchat failed to adequately warn its users about the extent of rampant “sextortion schemes” targeting underage users – even as employees debated internally about how to address the crisis without causing panic, according to an unredacted version of a lawsuit released Tuesday.The new details surfaced in a complaint originally filed last month by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez.It alleges that the photo sharing app popular with kids is a major platform for online sex predators who coerce minors into sending graphic images and then use them as blackmail.Internal data showed that Snap was receiving “around 10,000 user reports of sextortion each month,” a member of the company’s trust and safety team said in a November 2022 email, according to the updated suit.

The employee described the situation as “incredibly concerning.”Another employee replied that the data, while “massive,” was likely a “small fraction of this abuse” that was actually taking place on the app because it is an “embarrassing issue” for users to report, according to the complaint.“It is disheartening to see that Snap employees have raised many red flags that have continued to be ignored by executives,” Torrez said in a statement Tuesday.The unredacted lawsuit also included an internal Snap marketing brief sent in December 2022 that acknowledged that “sexting or the sending of nudes has become a common behavior” that can “lead to disproportionate consequences and severe harms” for users.The document called for Snap to provide information to users about the risks “without striking fear into Snapchatters,” according to the lawsuit.“We can’t tell our audience NOT to send nudes; this approach is likely futile, “tone deaf” and unrealistic,” the document said.

“That said, we also can’t say, ‘If you DO do it: (1) don’t have your face in the photo, (2) don’t have tattoos, piercings, or other defining physical characteristics in view,...