“Because of key features that Snap designed, predators, traffickers, drug dealers, extortionists, and other offenders have repeatedly used Snapchat to contact, groom, monitor, and coerce children. These threats are not abstract or theoretical. Arkansas law enforcement, parents, and educators have consistently identified Snapchat as a primary tool used by adults seeking to exploit minor,” Griffin said.
Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin has filed a lawsuit against Snap Inc., the parent company and owner of Snapchat, accusing it of engaging in “deceptive and unconscionable trade practices.”
In a press release, Griffin’s office described Snapchat as a “public nuisance” that negatively impacts the health and safety of young Arkansans. Griffin also claimed that Snapchat’s continued operation constitutes a form of unjust enrichment at the expense of the state’s children.
“Snapchat is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world and is especially popular among teens. Millions of minors, including thousands of kids in Arkansas, use the platform every day,” Griffin said in a statement. “In building its platform, which includes core features such as disappearing messages, cosmetic filters, and curated content, Snap exposed minors to a variety of foreseeable harms. These harms have included sextortion rings, predatory grooming, violent content, illegal drug marketplaces, unrealistic beauty standards, and an untested My AI chatbot that delivers dangerous and inappropriate advice.”
“These dangers,” Griffin said, “were amplified by some of Snapchat’s core features like disappearing messages and automatically-vanishing content. Such features gave kids the illusion of protection and facilitated them making impulsive decisions about what to share online.”
“Because of key features that Snap designed, predators, traffickers, drug dealers, extortionists, and other offenders have repeatedly used Snapchat to contact, groom, monitor, and coerce children. These threats are not abstract or theoretical. Arkansas law enforcement, parents, and educators have consistently identified Snapchat as a primary tool used by adults seeking to exploit minor,” Griffin said.
Griffin’s lawsuit also accuses Snap of making decisions it knew, or should have known, would come at the cost of kids’ mental health and general well-being.
“These design features also replicated the kind of dopamine feedback loops present in slot-machine mechanics, pushing young people to stay on the platform to chase the next dopamine hit,” Griffin said. “And none of this was by accident. Snap’s design choices were calculated to leverage the developmental vulnerabilities of minors. Snapchat’s designers exploited teens’ craving for social approval, their sensitivity to exclusion, and their susceptibility to impulse-driven reward systems. Snap knowingly built its platform to create addiction in our children to maximize profits over people, all the while marketing Snapchat to parents as being safe and ‘family-friendly.”
The attorney general also accused Snapchat of failing to enforce the few safety mechanisms it has, including restrictions on users’ ages. Children under the age of 13, for instance, can easily misrepresent their ages, potentially them at-risk for exposure to “addictive features and lurking threats.”
The Arkansas Advocate notes that Arkansas became the first state in the country to require that social media companies verify children’s ages before letting them create social media accounts. A federal judge blocked the law in 2025.
Sources
Arkansas files lawsuit against Snapchat parent company
Attorney General Tim Griffin files lawsuit alleging Snapchat features endanger minors
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