Snapchat lawsuit overview:
- Who: Seven parents filed a lawsuit on behalf of five minors against Snap Inc. and nine individual defendants.
- Why: Plaintiffs claim Snapchat’s design features helped adult strangers find, groom and sexually abuse their children.
- Where: The lawsuit was filed in Pennsylvania state court.
A new lawsuit claims Snap built Snapchat with features that connected children with adult strangers who groomed, threatened and sexually abused them.
Plaintiff C.N. filed the Snapchat lawsuit on Oct. 26 on behalf of her minor child, K.N., alongside six other parents acting on behalf of four additional children, all identified only by their initials. The families all reside in Pennsylvania.
The children were between 8 and 14 years old when the alleged abuse began. The plaintiffs claim Snapchat’s Quick Add feature recommended adult strangers to several of the children as “friends” while sending the children’s profiles to those adults, and that its Snap Map feature revealed the children’s locations.
C.N. claims a 37-year-old man Snapchat recommended to 13-year-old K.N. used Snap Map to find her home, then kidnapped and sexually assaulted her in June 2025 and threatened her with a handgun.
Other families allege men met their children through the app, sexually assaulted them, coerced them into sending explicit images or threatened violence. One 8-year-old was told a stranger would come to her house and kill her unless she sent nude images, the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit also names nine adult individual defendants, several of whom have been arrested or criminally charged, according to the complaint.
“This lawsuit is about a defective and inherently dangerous product. One that is designed to be manipulative and exploitative while purporting to be a fun and safe place for kids,” the Snapchat lawsuit says.
The plaintiffs say the case targets Snap’s own product design and child safety failures, not content posted by other users.
Lawsuit alleges Snap ignored child safety warnings
The plaintiffs claim Snap’s My Eyes Only feature, a password-protected vault inside the app, lets predators store child sexual abuse material where law enforcement cannot reach it. In one child’s case, police could not access the vault and the data Snap produced was lacking, the complaint says.
The families also point to a “Sextortion Handbook” that calls Snapchat “the best app for sextortion” and teaches predators to use Quick Add to reach large numbers of children. They claim that in the nearly three years since Snap executives learned of the document, the company has not disabled Quick Add or Snap Map for minors or warned parents about the child safety risks while keeping the app’s 12+ age rating.
The Snapchat lawsuit accuses Snap of defective design, failure to warn, negligence, human trafficking under Pennsylvania law and intentional infliction of emotional distress. It brings assault, battery and human trafficking claims against the individual defendants.
The plaintiffs demand a 12-member jury trial and seek compensatory, treble and punitive damages, plus medical expenses, attorney fees and interest.
Meanwhile, the Arkansas attorney general is suing Snap, accusing the company of designing Snapchat in ways that expose children to predators, addictive behaviors and other foreseeable harms while marketing the platform as safe for young users.
Do you think social media apps do enough to protect children? Let us know in the comments.
The plaintiffs are represented by Zachary Yurick, Joel W. Goldberg, Charles P. Maloney IV and Basil G. Joy of Goldberg, Goldberg & Maloney and Matthew P. Bergman and Laura Marquez-Garrett of the Social Media Victims Law Center.
The Snapchat lawsuit is C.N., et al. v. Snap Inc., et al., Case No. 261003488, in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania.
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