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Snap employees were well aware of the app’s child safety issues, newly unsealed complaint says

They acknowledged gun and addiction issues, too, it says.

We continue to evolve our safety mechanisms and policies, from leveraging advanced technology to detect and block certain activity, to prohibiting friending from suspicious accounts, to working alongside law enforcement and government agencies, among so much more.” According to the complaint, Snap employees circulated an external report in 2021 that included examples of alleged predators connecting with kids as young as eight through Snapchat and obtaining child sexual abuse material. “We believe we can achieve this without meaningfully degrading the product experience for these users if we pursue new strategies in inventory generation/constraints and other techniques to more effectively silo minors from people outside their networks.” Snap later made it so the Quick Add feature would only show up for 13 to 17-year-olds’ accounts when they had “a certain number of friends in common with that person.” But internally, the complaint says, employees recognized that the approach would still have significant shortcomings.

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