Friend recommendations, disappearing messages, and maps that show where someone is...
These are everyday features on Snapchat, the social media app popular among teenagers. But in a new wave of lawsuits, they're being described as tools that can make it easier for sexual predators to reach and exploit children.
Yesterday, lawsuits involving six children in Washington and Pennsylvania were announced against Snap Inc., Snapchat's parent company. The children were between 8 and 14 years old when the alleged exploitation occurred.
The complaints take aim at more than individual predators. They argue that Snapchat's technology helped create the conditions for abuse, and that the company knew about the risks.
The plaintiffs' legal argument, which is increasingly appearing in cases against social media companies, is that not only about what bad actors do on these platforms, it's how the platforms are built.
How Friend Recommendations Become Safety Risks
Snapchat's Quick Add feature, now known as Find Friends, is designed to help users discover people they might know.
The new lawsuits allege that the recommendation system also connected children with adult strangers who subsequently groomed, threatened or sexually exploited them.
Other familiar features are receiving similar scrutiny:
Snap Map allows users to share their locations with selected contacts. The complaints describe incidents in which adults allegedly used location information to intimidate children or arrange meetings.
Disappearing messages, one of Snapchat's defining features, are intended to make conversations temporary. The lawsuits claim that this design can also make abusive communications harder for parents and investigators to discover.
My Eyes Only, a password-protected storage feature, is also cited in allegations involving the concealment of exploitative material.
Even Snapchat's engagement features, including Snapstreaks and Snapscores, have entered the discussion. Plaintiffs argue that tools rewarding frequent interaction can reinforce relationships that children may not recognize as dangerous.
Individually, these features serve familiar social media functions. Together, the lawsuits contend, they can create opportunities for exploitation while making it more difficult to recognize what's happening.
What Did Snapchat Know?
One allegation concerns a document described in the complaints as the "Sextortion Handbook."
According to the plaintiffs, Snap executives received a copy of the 133-page document in early 2024. It allegedly explained how predators could use Snapchat's features to identify and manipulate children.
The complaints also describe warnings from parents, law enforcement and child-safety advocates about predators exploiting the platform.
The plaintiffs contend that Snap failed to make sufficient changes to its recommendation, messaging and safety systems despite those warnings.
Though Snap may ultimately contend that it cannot control every harmful interaction between users, the new lawsuits focus on whether foreseeable risks were amplified by features the company itself developed and maintained.
That shifts the legal debate from policing individual conversations toward examining the safety of the product.
Snapchat Faces Legal Challenges on Several Fronts
The six children's lawsuits aren't isolated.
Also yesterday, West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey filed a consumer protection lawsuit against Snap, accusing the company of misleading families about Snapchat's safety.
That complaint addresses sexual exploitation risks, harmful content, compulsive-use design and the company's My AI chatbot.
Meanwhile, Snap faces thousands of claims alleging that Snapchat and other social media platforms encourage compulsive use among young people, contributing to mental health injuries.
Many of those cases are part of federal Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation, known as MDL 3047.
The addiction litigation is distinct from the newly announced child exploitation lawsuits, but both challenge decisions about how social media platforms are designed.
The lawsuits come as Google, Meta and TikTok challenge a California law restricting social media features intended to keep younger users engaged.
In its September 2026 quarterly SEC filing, Snap acknowledged multiple categories of litigation involving youth safety, alleged sexual exploitation, social media addiction and other platform-related harms.
The company has also described its investments in technology and human review to detect harmful activity. Its most recent transparency reporting details enforcement measures against accounts and content associated with child sexual exploitation.
Product Design As the Central Issue In Social Media Harm Litigation
Social media companies have historically relied in part on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provides important legal protections involving content created by users.
But lawsuits increasingly focus on platform features and design decisions rather than simply the content people post.
Courts are being asked to consider when platform design choices create risks that companies should have anticipated and addressed.
The stakes extend well beyond Snapchat. Similar questions have emerged in litigation involving Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and Roblox.