Parents of children who have been harmed on social media often ask the same question: how did this happen while I was watching? A recent session at Mass Torts Made Perfect, a national conference for plaintiff attorneys, took up that question directly. The session, “Snapchat: Online Child Predators in the Digital Age,” brought together Mike Papantonio, Matthew P. Bergman of the Social Media Victims Law Center (SMVLC), Eric Holland, and Andy Birchfield. Their discussion focused on whether Snapchat’s product features helped adults find, approach, deceive, and exploit children, and whether the company can be held responsible for design decisions that made those encounters foreseeable.
This recap summarizes what was presented. These are allegations, and Snap disputes them.
A Family’s Experience
Bergman’s presentation centered on a family he represents. The child was 11 and loved to dance. Her mother described checking which apps her daughter used and requiring permission before downloads. She believed she was an engaged parent using the controls available to her. Bergman described adults contacting the girl on Instagram and Snapchat, with the conversations moving between platforms, and placed those contacts alongside the child’s accounts of bullying and deep distress. The child died by suicide in 2021. Her family’s wrongful-death lawsuit alleges that product design and safety failures contributed to her death, and it includes allegations about addiction as well as exploitation.
How Sextortion Works
Papantonio explained the mechanics of sextortion on social media. A child is persuaded to send an intimate image, then threatened with its distribution to friends or classmates unless the child meets further demands. Those demands can include money, more images, or an in-person meeting. The power imbalance is what makes this abuse so effective: the adult controls the encounter, and the child believes exposure will ruin their life.
What the Public Filings Allege
Papantonio repeatedly stressed that documents drive damages, and state enforcement filings contain internal material about how exploitation reports were handled.
Utah’s complaint, filed in July 2025, alleges that an account attracting 75 reports involving intimate images, minors, and extortion stayed active for 10 months. The pleading also describes internal acknowledgments that grooming and sextortion reports were not being adequately handled, in part because moderation vendors lacked appropriate guidance.
New Mexico’s public description of its lawsuit references internal discussions of roughly 10,000 user reports of sextortion per month by late 2022, along with acknowledgments of underreporting. According to the state, an internal investigation involving 279 confirmed sextortion victims found that 70% had not reported their victimization. These are reports and internal findings, not a verified count of individual child victims.
Snap disputes the states’ characterizations. In its November 2024 response to New Mexico’s lawsuit, the company argued that the state misrepresented its investigation and selectively characterized internal records. Snap has also pointed to its investments in safety personnel, proactive detection, and cooperation with law enforcement. Those defenses will be weighed alongside the allegations.
The Missouri Case and the Features at Issue
Holland described a Missouri case brought by Holland Law Firm and SMVLC. According to counsel’s public announcement, an adult connected with a girl on Snapchat when she was 11, presented himself as a teenager, groomed her, and sexually assaulted her. He later pleaded guilty to criminal charges. The civil complaint seeks to examine the platform’s alleged role beyond the offender’s criminal responsibility.
Counsel contends that Quick Add connected the adult with the child, that Snap Map exposed her location, that Bitmoji helped him appear to be a friendly peer, and that disappearing messages helped conceal the communications. These are claims the plaintiffs must prove. They do, however, identify the specific features the plaintiffs say contributed to the harm.
The panel also discussed an offender-created sextortion handbook that was allegedly known to Snap. Its significance, as the panelists framed it, lies in notice: whether relevant personnel received information describing predictable misuse of the platform, and how the company responded.
The Legal Obstacle: Design Versus Publishing
Bergman explained that the central hurdle is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which often shields platforms from liability for user content. Plaintiffs must identify the specific duty the company allegedly breached and show that the claim targets the company’s own conduct rather than the publication of someone else’s content.
Lemmon v. Snap, Inc. illustrates the framework. In 2021, the Ninth Circuit held that Section 230 did not bar a negligent-design claim against Snapchat, which involved the Speed Filter and a reward system. The court distinguished a duty arising from product design from the company’s publishing activity and reversed a dismissal. That case involved a fatal car crash rather than sexual exploitation, and it did not establish liability. It did show that a design-based theory can proceed past this early defense.
Bergman also described an exploitation case in which a Quick Add theory initially met an adverse Section 230 ruling. Counsel amended the complaint to argue that Snap’s own generated content, including an avatar used in the alleged grooming, supported a different theory, and the case later resolved. The panel’s point was that these cases can require persistence and precision.
A Call for Trial Lawyers
Holland stressed careful case selection, jurisdiction-specific law, and rigorous screening, and he warned against filing weak cases that could produce adverse rulings. Papantonio discussed building a state-court strategy and recruiting attorneys prepared to try these cases. Birchfield urged the attorneys in the room to stay involved until the litigation changes how these companies operate. Bergman said that preventing even one child and one family from enduring what this family endured would make the work worthwhile.
What Families Should Take From This
The next meaningful developments will be court rulings on specific exploitation theories, the internal records that establish notice and response, and individual cases strong enough to survive motions and reach a jury. For families, the most useful questions are concrete ones:
- How did contact began?
- What did the adult claim to be?
- Which features were used?
- Were reports or warnings sent to the company and did they act on them?
What Parents Can Do Now
- Talk with your child early and often. Explain that adults sometimes pose as teens online, and that a child who has been threatened should come to you, even if they feel they made a mistake. Reassure them that you will help.
- Never pay. Payment does not end sextortion, and the demands usually continue.
- Preserve evidence. Save screenshots of messages, usernames, profile links, and payment requests. Do not delete conversations, and do not confront the person online.
- Report it. Contact local law enforcement and file a report with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at report.cybertip.org. Report the account to the platform as well.
- Get help for your child. If your child talks about self-harm or suicide, call or text 988 in the U.S. or contact emergency services immediately.
- Speak with an attorney promptly. Filing deadlines can apply, so waiting can cost families their options.
Free Case Evaluation
If your child was contacted, pressured, or threatened on Snapchat, including through sextortion, you do not have to face it alone. The Social Media Victims Law Center (SMVLC) is committed to holding social media companies accountable for the harm they cause to children and teens, and it reviews Snapchat sextortion cases at no cost. Learn about SMVLC’s Snapchat lawsuits and request a free case evaluation by submitting a form on our website or call (206) 741-4862. Every case is different, and reviewing the facts is the first step.
This post is for general information only and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Session details are drawn from reporting by Atraxia Media on the Mass Torts Made Perfect presentation.
