The American state of New Mexico is suing social media platform Snapchat for enabling the sexual exploitation of children, reports CNBC.
According to the lawsuit, the app's design and algorithms promote child pornography and the sexual exploitation of children, as well as drug and weapons trafficking. Furthermore, it is claimed that Snapchat made several statements about the company's security that were known to be false.
"Snap has misled users into believing that photos and videos they send disappear, but perpetrators can save the material permanently. The perpetrators have essentially created a catalog of child pornography that is traded, sold, and stored unlimitedly," says the state's Attorney General Raúl Torrez in a statement according to CNBC.
The state has previously sued the company Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, on similar grounds.
The lawsuit against Snapchat comes after New Mexico's Justice Department conducted an investigation over the past few months. The examination reveals that there are sites where a large number of stolen images with sexual content have been published, images that were obtained from Snapchat.
