“This attack did not occur in a vacuum; it occurred because the design of the Snapchat product made it easy for a predator to reach and manipulate an unsuspecting child,” said Bergman, founding attorney at the Seattle-based Social Media Victims Law Center.
A Snap spokesperson said in an email Friday that the company was in the early stages of reviewing the complaint.
“We care deeply about the safety and well-being of all Snapchatters, and our teams have worked for years to create safeguards, launch safety tutorials, partner with experts, and work with authorities to help prevent misuse of our platform,” Snap said in a statement sent by spokesperson Monique Bellamy.
The lawsuit also names Gabriel Joel Valentin-Rios as a defendant.
He pleaded guilty in March to statutory rape and seducing the girl and was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
Valentín-Ríos befriended the girl on Snapchat in 2021 when she was 11 years old, according to charging documents in the criminal case.
Valentín Ríos, who was 25 years old at the time, told the girl that he was 17.
He later convinced the girl, who had turned 12, to meet him for sex, according to charging documents.
The lawsuit filed this week says Valentin-Rios used various Snapchat features such as “Quick Add” and “Snap Map” to connect with the girl, disguise her appearance, groom her, discover where she lived and pressure her to meet in person.
The lawsuit said that as early as 2019, Snap’s internal research showed that the Quick Add feature “recommended strangers to users more than half the time.”
Meanwhile, Valentin-Rios’ “Bitmoji” cartoon avatar disguised his appearance and made him look like a “young, harmless and friendly child,” according to the lawsuit.
