• Snap is being sued after a girl was raped by an adult she met through the platform.
• The lawsuit claims Snapchat's features facilitate exploitation and grooming of minors.
• The victim's parents seek damages and changes to the app's safety protocols.

Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, is facing a lawsuit in Missouri after the parents of a girl alleged that features on the social media platform enabled an adult man to contact, groom, and sexually assault their daughter when she was 12 years old. The lawsuit, filed in Missouri state court, names both Snap and Gabriel Joel Valentin-Rios, who has pleaded guilty to statutory rape and is currently serving an 18-year prison sentence. The family claims that Snapchat's recommendation system suggested the girl to adult users, including Valentin-Rios, making it easier for him to connect with her, according to Indiatimes, CBS News, and LA Times.

The lawsuit alleges that the girl began using Snapchat at the age of 11, bypassing the platform's age-verification system, which mandates users to be at least 13. After connecting with Valentin-Rios, he began sending her unsolicited explicit images, which the design of Snapchat made difficult to avoid. Additionally, Snapchat's Snap Maps feature revealed her home location without her consent, according to the complaints raised by the victims' family, as reported by Indiatimes, CBS News, and LA Times.

Matthew Bergman, founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center, emphasized that the case illustrates how Snapchat's design can facilitate abuse, stating, "This assault did not happen in a vacuum — it happened because Snapchat’s product design made it easy for a predator to reach and manipulate an unsuspecting child." In addition to seeking unspecified damages, the lawsuit calls for the court to compel Snap to change its practices to better protect minors from such dangers, according to Indiatimes, CBS News, and LA Times.

The lawsuit is part of a broader trend where Snap faces legal challenges over child safety issues. Prior lawsuits, such as one filed by New Mexico in 2024, have also raised concerns that Snapchat's designs facilitate not only sextortion and sexual abuse but also do not adequately warn users of potential dangers associated with connecting to strangers. Courts have been hesitant to dismiss these lawsuits, reflecting growing scrutiny of social media platforms' roles in child safety, according to Indiatimes, CBS News, and LA Times.