Snap says New Mexico intentionally befriended alleged child predators, and blames the company

Snap says the basis for a misdemeanor lawsuit that suggests it systematically recommends new accounts to child abusers is back — the company now accuses New Mexico’s attorney general of knowingly seeking out such accounts before recommendations are made. The company says the AG’s lawsuit is based on “gross misrepresentation” and cherry-picking of Snap’s internal documents.

In a dismissal decision filed Thursday, Snap says AG Raúl Torrez’s complaint makes “false” allegations, and specifically misrepresents its own undercover investigation, in which the AG’s office created a 14-year-old fake account. Torrez says Snap violated unfair national practices and public nuisance laws by misleading users about the safety and ephemerality of its “disappearing” messages, which he says allowed abusers to collect and store sexually explicit images of children.

But Snap says that contrary to how the country described it, investigators were the ones who sent friend requests from the decoy account “to clearly targeted usernames such as ‘nudedude_22,’ ‘teenxxxxxxx06,’ ‘ineedasugardadx,’ and ‘xxx_tradehot.'”

And Snap says it was actually a government decoy account that searched for and added an account called “Enzo (Nud15Ans)” — which allegedly went on to ask the decoy to send anonymous messages through an encrypted service at the end — rather than back off, as the state says. The state says that after contacting Enzo, “Snapchat recommended more than 91 users, including many users who created their own accounts that included or wanted to exchange graphic sex.”

Snap also says the state is “repeatedly misrepresenting” its internal documents, including accusing Snap of choosing not to “keep child sexual abuse images” and suggesting it failed to provide them to law enforcement. In fact, according to Snap, it is prohibited from storing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on its servers under federal law, and it says it “certainly” forwards any such content to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children as authorized.

Lauren Rodriguez, director of communications for the New Mexico Department of Justice, says Snap wants to dismiss the case to “avoid accountability for the massive harm the platform is causing to children.” In a statement, he says, “The evidence we have presented—including internal documents and the findings of our investigation—clearly demonstrates that Snap has long been unaware of the risks on the platform and failed to act.” Instead of addressing these critical issues with real changes to their algorithms and design features, Snap continues to put profit over protecting children. “

We find Snap’s focus on the small details of the investigation to be an attempt to distract from the serious issues raised in the State’s case. We will deal with these issues by using the appropriate court documents. The harm described in our complaint remains a major concern, as new Snapchat users continue to face the same risks described to us.

The company wants to dismiss the lawsuit on several grounds, including that the state is trying to mandate age verification and parental controls that violate the First Amendment and that the statutory liability protection Section 230 should bar the lawsuit.

Snap also claims that the AG’s claims of Snap’s misrepresentation of its services center on “`praise-based’ statements (eg, that Snapchat is a ‘no hassle’ platform) and encouraging statements about Snap’s commitment to security, any of them.” remotely ensures that Snap will (very little) eliminate all potential third-party risks.”

Update, November 21st: Added additional statement from Rodriguez.