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MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (WMUR) — A New Hampshire teenager and her mother are suing Snap Inc., alleging the company chose money over the safety of its young users at the expense of human dignity.
“Sophie Doe,” as she is identified in the complaint, was 14 years old when her Snapchat account was compromised. Images she had saved in the app’s “My Eyes Only” feature were allegedly stolen and later appeared on websites that publish and sell child sexual abuse material.
The platform’s “My Eyes Only” feature is designed for “Snaps that you want to keep extra private!” and is password-protected, according to Snapchat’s website.
The plaintiff, now 19, said she was misled into taking and saving explicit pictures that were later compromised.
The complaint argued she took the pictures because the “My Eyes Only” feature essentially promised security.
“Sophie Doe would not have created and/or saved nude and sexually explicit material on Snapchat if it were not for Snap’s representation that My Eyes Only was private, safe and accessible only to her,” the complaint said.
The lawsuit pointed to the feature’s graphic design, which includes a shield and key, arguing that the imagery implies privacy, control and defense.
“There just aren’t enough warnings or protections against other people, bad actors, predators kind of hacking into these accounts and then misusing that content,” her attorney, Shan Shan Guo, told News 9.
In March 2021, Sophie Doe’s Snapchat account, including the photos saved in My Eyes Only, was allegedly hacked.
Several weeks after the cyberattack, she received a message from another user who claimed he had purchased nude photos of her on another platform. Soon after that conversation, Sophie Doe was flooded with messages from others who made similar claims.
According to the complaint, she received hundreds of unwanted contacts, including Snapchat messages, phone calls and text messages. The suit also alleges the people were able to contact Sophie Doe because her personal information was also targeted and shared elsewhere online.
“That’s completely unacceptable,” Guo said. “As a result, she’s suffered an immense amount of damages and trauma.”
The mother and daughter argue Snap should be held liable for the emotional trauma she endured because of the hack. Attorneys for the family argue Snapchat does not do enough to warn or protect children from this kind of harm.
“Snapchat is a product that not only targets young people and children and teens, but it also facilitates the exchange of explicit content through the use of disappearing audiovisual messages — so photos and videos and things like that,” Guo said.
“Despite being aware of the myriad issues of sexual exploitation that children faced on its social media platform, including being jacked and catfished for [child sexual abuse material], Snap failed to implement safeguards on Snapchat that would meaningfully protect the privacy, safety and security of its young users,” the complaint alleged.
Snap has repeatedly appeared on the National Center on Sexual Exploitation’s “Dirty Dozen” list, which criticizes mainstream entities it says facilitate, enable or profit from sexual abuse.
Snap declined to comment.
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