West Virginia Attorney General J.B. McCuskey filed a consumer protection lawsuit on Thursday against Snap Inc., the maker of Snapchat, for alleged deception about the safety of its platform for young users.
The lawsuit, filed in Kanawha County Circuit Court, alleges Snapchat designed its platform to promote compulsive use and knowingly exposed children to harmful content and sexual exploitation in violation of the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act.
It cites the suicides of two West Virginia minors who were caught up in sextortion schemes on Snapchat.
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Last November, 15-year-old Bryce Tate provided sexual images to a Snapchat user posing as a 17-year-old girl he knew. The user then tried to blackmail him, and when he could not pay the $500 demand, the user pressured him to kill himself.
In May 2018, Cimarron Thomas, then 12, died by suicide after being caught up in a sextortion scheme that involved other non-monetary demands, including sending the predator images of her nine-year-old sister. She refused to comply with that demand, and her sister ultimately was the one who found her dead.
Mr. McCuskey said he plans to hold Snap accountable for those tragedies and other harms its platform has posed to kids in West Virginia.
“I am also proud to announce that we will be funding a sextortion awareness campaign, using consumer education dollars, secured through our victories against other social media and tech companies, so that the next child knows exactly what to do if a predator comes after them,” he said.
Last week, Mr. McCuskey filed a separate consumer protection lawsuit against TikTok for putting kids at risk.
His office’s consumer protection division conducted testing that found notable differences between content delivered to an adult account and one purporting to be a 13-year-old girl.
The minor account received sexually suggestive content, while the adult account largely received content on home improvement, local restaurants and other ordinary interests.
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