Were you or your child harmed by Snapchat?

Snap settled the K.G.M. case on 20 January 2026, before jury selection. The terms are confidential.

A trial brought by plaintiffs identified as S.J. and K.D.B. against Meta and Snap is scheduled to begin on 28 October 2026 in the California coordinated proceedings.

The New Mexico Attorney General published an unredacted complaint against Snap Inc. and quoted internal Snap messages from it, including a 2022 email from a Snap executive: “I don’t think we can say that we actually verify” users’ age; a Snap Slack chat: “by design, over 90% of account-level reports are ignored today”; and a Snap employee: “Wow, we should have more addicting features like this.” The press release gives no date for the second and third quotations. These are allegations in a complaint, not findings of a court. Tech Policy Press reports that the State filed the unredacted amended complaint on 2 October 2024 and that the court granted the State’s motion to seal it on 13 November 2024 (case D-101-CV-2024-02131). We quote only what the Department of Justice published on 2 October 2024.

The New Mexico Attorney General announced that a New Mexico court “denied the tech giant’s motion to dismiss”. The press release states that the lawsuit, which alleges that Snapchat’s design, “including disappearing messages and unmoderated content discovery features”, creates an environment that predators exploit to harm children, can move forward, and that “the court rejected Snap’s claims that it is immune from suit under federal law.” This is the Attorney General’s account of a ruling on a motion to dismiss, which accepts the complaint’s allegations as true. It is not a finding that they are proved. NM Political Report (Josh Lee, 28 July 2025) independently reported that Snap “claimed immunity under Section 230” and that its motion to dismiss “was denied by a New Mexico district court in April”, allowing the case to proceed into discovery. We have not seen the order itself.

New York City sued Meta, Alphabet (YouTube), Snap and ByteDance in a 327-page complaint alleging gross negligence and public nuisance. These are allegations, not findings.

Snap is a defendant in the consolidated federal proceedings. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation listed more than 3,000 pending actions in the MDL in August 2026.

Snap’s chief executive wrote: “Protecting Snapchatters is our moral responsibility and a business imperative.” He also wrote: “By embracing ephemerality, and deleting messages by default, we gave Snapchat the lightness of a phone call or face-to-face conversation that isn’t recorded or saved forever.” In the same statement he identified three major threats to the service: “extortion, the distribution of child sexual abuse material, and illicit drugs.” A copy of the testimony is hosted on this site.

CNN reported that, “In response to prompting from California Democrat Sen. Laphonza Butler, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel also apologized to families whose children have died after they purchased drugs on Snapchat. ‘I’m so sorry that we have not been able to prevent these tragedies,’ Spiegel said, before detailing some of the efforts the company takes to protect young users.” This is a news report of statements at a Senate hearing, not a court finding.

Snapchat’s “streak” counts consecutive days of messaging between users and resets to zero if a day is missed. Claimants in the US cases allege that features like this encourage compulsive daily use.

Snap Map lets users share their real-time location with friends. Claimants allege this creates safety risks for minors.

Messages on Snapchat disappear after they are viewed. Claimants allege that this reduces accountability and increases risk for young users.