A new lawsuit against Snap, Inc., the parent company behind Snapchat, alleges the social media platform’s features enabled a child predator to sexually assault a 12-year-old girl.
The filing references patterns of abuse and negligence around Snapchat which child advocates have been calling out for years.
The Social Media Victims Law Center and Holland Law Firm filed the suit late last month in St. Charles County, Missouri on behalf of 12-year-old JF and her family. It alleges Snapchat enabled 25-year-old Gabriel Joel Valentin-Rios to contact, groom and rape JF in September 2021.
The predator pled guilty to one count of statutory rape or attempted statutory rape and one count of enticement or attempted enticement in June. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
“The assault did not happen in a vacuum,” Matthew P. Bergman, founding attorney of the Social Media Victims Law Center, argued in a press release.
“It happened because Snap’s product design made it easy for a predator to reach and manipulate an unsuspecting child.”
JF reportedly started using Snapchat at just 11 years old — without her parents’ knowledge or permission. The app’s “Quick Add” algorithm, which recommends new “friends” to users based on mutual “friends,” connected her to Valentin-Rios.
The two had no real-life connections, but JF didn’t know that. Snapchat made it seem like they had all the same “friends.”
In reality, Valentin-Rios allegedly used Snapchat’s “Quick Add” to find and target girls JF’s age. According to the suit, the 25-year-old exchanged thousands of messages with more than a dozen other girls aged 12 to 16, all of whom he found through the “Quick Add” algorithm.
He either sexually propositioned or sexually abused them all.
JF believed Valentin-Rios was a teenager, per the filing. The predator allegedly told his other victims he attended high school. He used Snapchat’s “Bitmoji” feature to create an online avatar supporting his lie.
As far as 12-year-old JF was concerned, Valentin-Rios “looked” like a teenager.
The 25-year-old used Snapchat to groom JF. He sent her nude images and coerced her to send explicit pictures in return. He used these sensitive photos to sextort, or blackmail, her — likely to send increasingly graphic material.
Images sent over Snapchat disappear in 24 hours. When a user screenshots or saves a photo to preserve it, every person on the chat is alerted, a deterrent which further preserves the platform’s culture of secrecy.
These features are virtually synonymous with the platform’s brand. Predators like Valentin-Rios use them to extort child sexual abuse material (CSAM) from their victims. Minors also use Snapchat to exchange self-generated CSAM through sexting.
Snapchat’s Snap Map all allows users to broadcast their location live to their “friends.” Though the app no longer automatically enables location sharing, users like JF can choose to turn on Snap Map.
Valentin-Rios reportedly got JF’s home address from Snap Map. On September 16, 2021, he convinced her to sneak out of her house, then raped her.
This isn’t the first time Snap, Inc. has been on the hook for failing to protect children.
Snapchat made its fifth appearance on the National Center on Sexual Exploitation’s (NCOSE) Dirty Dozen List this year, distinguishing it as one of the 12 biggest mainstream companies facilitating, enabling or profiting from the sexual exploitation and abuse of children in 2026.
It first appeared on the Dirty Dozen List in 2016.
NCOSE’s profile of Snapchat documents example after example of predators using Snapchat to target children and Snap, Inc. failing to protect young users.
New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez sued Snapchat for offenses related to harming minors in 2024, including:
“Permitting predators to identify, contact, groom and extort children and to develop CSAM through these contacts.”
“Designing algorithms and features that connect child sex predators to children and allow predators to find target victims.”
Sound familiar?
Snapchat was also one of the original four plaintiffs in KGM v. Meta, the social media addiction lawsuit in which a jury found Meta and YouTube responsible for harming a young woman with their addictive products.
This case makes two arguments:
Snap, Inc. designed Snapchat in such a way that it harms minors.
Snap, Inc. knows about the harm it causes minors, but neglects to solve it.
In March, juries in California and New Mexico delivered judgements creating substantial precedent in these areas.
In California, a jury ruled against Meta and YouTube in KGM v. Meta, finding the addictive social media platforms caused KGM to experience sextortion, depression, anxiety and body image issues. A higher court rejected Meta’s appeal of the ruling on June 11.
Recall that, prior to this ruling, social media companies wiggled out of almost any lawsuit by claiming the harm victims experience from social media has nothing to do with the way the platforms are designed, but the kinds of content victims ingest.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Acts says social media companies cannot be held liable for the content people post of their sites.
In New Mexico, a jury ruled against Meta in New Mexico v. Meta, holding the social media giant responsible for endangering children and “misleading consumers” about the safety of its platforms.
The ruling was based on evidence uncovered in an undercover operation showing Meta’s platforms:
Show underage users sexually explicit content without prompting.
Allow adult predators to contact children and sexually exploit them.
Facilitate the spread and exchange of child pornography.
The ruling in KGM suggests juries can understand and sympathize with legal arguments connecting a social media platform’s design choices to user harm.
The ruling in New Mexico suggest juries are willing to punish social media companies, not just for acting poorly, but for failing to act when they knew abuse was occurring.
Based on what we know thus far, JF’s lawyers intend to prove Snap, Inc. engaged in both kinds of bad behavior. If JF wins, the company could be forced to pay compensatory and punitive damages. A judge could also order its to change the parts of its platform which cause harm.
JF’s case illustrates how hard it is to police platforms like Snapchat.
The 11-year-old unwittingly exposed herself to great danger, culminating in a devastating physical violation. Her parents didn’t even know she had downloaded the app.
Even supposing parents figure out Snapchat’s weak parental controls, JF’s lawsuit contends the app is designed to encourage illicit activity.
Snapchat is not a platform you want your child to join.
Additional Articles and Resources
New AI Tool Helps Parents Keep Kids Safe Online
Feds Convict First Person for Crimes Under ‘Take It Down’ Act
Zuckerberg, Grok, Messaging Platforms Dominate 2026 Dirty Dozen List
Juries in California, New Mexico Rule Against Meta
New Mexico Accuses Meta of Egregious Harm to Children in Court Case
Zuckerberg Implicated in Meta’s Failures to Protect Children
Instagram Content Restrictions Don’t Work, Tests Show
X’s ‘Grok’ Generates Pornographic Images of Real People on Demand
AI Company Releases Sexually-Explicit Chatbot on App Rated Appropriate for 12 Year Olds
TikTok Dangerous for Minors — Leaked Docs Show Company Refuses to Protect Kids
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