Lawsuit Against Snapchat Latest in Social Media Accountability Push – Daily Citizen

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.” Dangerous Features 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
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