Snap sued by parents of 12-year-old raped by adult met on Snapchat
18 reported
The parents of a 12-year-old girl who was raped by an adult stranger she met on Snapchat have filed a lawsuit against Snap, the app’s parent company, and the attacker in Missouri state court. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, alleges that Snap refused to disable dangerous features or warn parents about potential harms. According to the suit, the girl began using Snapchat in 2021 at age 11 without her parents’ knowledge, bypassing the app’s minimum age requirement of 13. The app recommended her and other teen girls as friends to defendant Gabriel Joel Valentin-Rios, an adult with no real-life connections to them, and later provided her home address through the Snap Maps feature. Valentin-Rios, who pleaded guilty to statutory rape and is serving an 18-year prison sentence, groomed the girl by pretending to be a 17-year-old boy. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and asks the court to compel Snap to stop practices that harm children.
What’s reported
The parents of a 12-year-old girl sued Snap and the attacker in Missouri state court.
The lawsuit was filed Wednesday.
The girl began using Snapchat in 2021 at age 11 without her parents’ knowledge.
The app requires users to be 13 to sign up, but the lawsuit says children could easily bypass the minimum-age requirement.
The app recommended the girl and teen girls from nearby high schools as friends to defendant Gabriel Joel Valentin-Rios, an adult with no real-life connections to them.
The app did not warn children that connecting to strangers might be dangerous.
Valentin-Rios sent the girl unsolicited nude photographs; the lawsuit says the girl did not want them and could not avoid such content due to Snapchat’s product design.
The Snap Maps feature provided Valentin-Rios with the girl’s home address without her knowledge.
Valentin-Rios groomed the girl by claiming he was a 17-year-old local high school boy, not a 25-year-old man.
He eventually met her in person and raped her.
Valentin-Rios pleaded guilty to statutory rape and is serving an 18-year prison sentence in Missouri.
The lawsuit claims Snapchat knew Valentin-Rios had multiple accounts, against app policies, including one used to lure teen girls.
Snap did not immediately respond to a message for comment Wednesday afternoon.
The girl has been diagnosed with PTSD, anxiety and depression, according to the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs seek unspecified damages and ask the court to compel Snap to stop practices that harm children.
Matthew Bergman, founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center, brought the suit on behalf of the plaintiffs.
New Mexico sued Snap in 2024 over similar design features; a judge denied the company’s motion to dismiss last year.
There are individual lawsuits pending against Snap, including one in Vermont on behalf of two 12-year-old girls.
Key figures
Gabriel Joel Valentin-Rios (defendant, adult attacker)
Matthew Bergman (founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center, attorney for plaintiffs)
Sources: abcnews.com
