2026年6月25日 / 美国东部时间早上6:45 / 哥伦比亚广播公司/美联社
一名12岁女孩通过Snapchat结识成年陌生人并遭其强奸，其父母已在密苏里州州法院起诉Snap及其母公司和这名施暴者。
周三提交的诉讼声称，这家社交媒体公司拒绝关闭应用内的危险功能，也未就其可能造成的潜在危害向家长发出警告。
根据诉讼文件，这名仅以首字母J.F.指代的女孩在2021年，也就是她11岁时，在父母不知情的情况下开始使用Snapchat。尽管该应用要求用户年满13岁才能注册，但诉讼文件显示，女孩不记得自己当时填写的出生日期，且儿童用户都知道可以轻松绕过年龄限制。
诉讼称，在开始使用Snapchat约一年后，该应用向女孩和附近几所高中的少女推荐了被告加布里埃尔·乔尔·巴伦廷-里奥斯——一名与她们并无现实交集的成年人。应用并未提醒孩子们，与陌生人交友可能存在危险。
女孩与巴伦廷-里奥斯成为好友后，后者开始向她发送未经请求的露骨照片，诉讼文件称。“J.F.并不想要这些照片，起初也没有回应，但Snapchat的产品设计让J.F.根本无法避开这类露骨内容，”文件中写道。
诉讼还称，作为Snap地图功能的一部分，该应用在女孩不知情的情况下向巴伦廷-里奥斯提供了她的家庭住址。随后巴伦廷-里奥斯对女孩进行 grooming（ grooming为针对未成年人的诱骗操控手段，此处译为“ grooming式诱骗”），谎称自己是当地一所高中的17岁男生，而非25岁的成年男子。最终他哄骗女孩与他见面，并实施了强奸。
巴伦廷-里奥斯已对法定强奸罪认罪，目前正在密苏里州服刑18年。
诉讼声称，Snap明知巴伦廷-里奥斯拥有多个违反应用政策的账号，其中包括一个用于引诱未成年女孩的账号。
周三下午，Snap未立即回应置评请求。
根据诉讼文件，J.F.已被诊断出患有创伤后应激障碍、焦虑症和抑郁症。
原告方寻求未明确数额的损害赔偿，并要求法院责令Snap停止伤害儿童的行为。
“这起性侵并非凭空发生——它之所以发生，是因为Snapchat的产品设计让捕食者能够轻易接触并操控毫无防备的儿童，”代表原告提起诉讼的社交媒体受害者法律中心创始人马修·伯格曼说道。“Snap的高管们早就知道，他们的功能为捕食者剥削儿童创造了完美环境，但他们一再未能让平台变得安全。”
这并非Snap首次面临此类诉讼。新墨西哥州曾在2024年起诉该公司，称其平台的设计特点助长了性敲诈、性虐待以及成年用户对未成年人的不当接触。
根据诉讼文件，Snap明知“性敲诈在Snapchat上是一个猖獗、‘大规模’且‘极其令人担忧的问题’”，却未向家长、年轻用户和公众发出警告。
性敲诈是指某人冒充同龄人，胁迫未成年人发送自身的露骨图片或视频，随后威胁要发布这些内容以索要钱财的犯罪行为。新墨西哥州总检察长劳尔·托雷斯在一份新闻稿中表示，这类诈骗已导致多名青少年自杀。
去年一名法官驳回了该公司提出的驳回诉讼动议。
目前还有多起针对该公司的个人诉讼 pending（此处译为“待审理”），包括佛蒙特州一起代表两名12岁女孩提起的诉讼，这两名女孩均通过Snapchat结识成年男子并遭性侵。
Snap sued over rape of minor who met adult attacker via Snapchat
June 25, 2026 / 6:45 AM EDT / CBS/AP
The parents of a girl who was raped when she was 12 years old by an adult stranger she connected to via Snapchat have sued its parent company, Snap, and the attacker, in Missouri state court.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday claims the social media company has refused to disable dangerous features in its app or warn parents about potential harms it may cause.
According to the lawsuit, the girl, referred to by the initials J.F., began using Snapchat in 2021 when she was 11 without her parents’ knowledge. While the app requires users to be 13 to sign up, the lawsuit says the girl does not remember what birth date she entered and that children knew they could easily bypass the minimum-age requirement.
About a year after she began using Snapchat, the lawsuit says the app recommended her and teen girls from nearby high schools as friends to defendant Gabriel Joel Valentin-Rios, an adult who had no real-life connections to them. It did not warn the children that connecting to strangers might be dangerous.
After the girl and Valentin-Rios connected, Valentin-Rios began sending her unsolicited nude photographs, the lawsuit says. “J.F. did not want these photographs and, at first, did not reciprocate but Snapchat’s product design made it impossible for J.F. to avoid such explicit content,” it says.
As part of its Snap Maps feature, the app also provided Valentin-Rios with the girl’s home address without her knowledge, according to the lawsuit. Valentin-Rios then groomed the girl, convincing her that he was a 17-year-old local high school boy, not a 25-year-old man. Eventually, he got her to meet him in person and raped her.
Valentin-Rios pleaded guilty to statutory rape and is currently serving an 18-year prison sentence in Missouri.
The lawsuit claims Snapchat knew that Valentin-Rios had multiple accounts – even though it is against the app’s policies – including one he used to lure teen girls.
Snap did not immediately respond to a message for comment Wednesday afternoon.
J.F. has been diagnosed with PTSD, anxiety and depression, according to the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs seek unspecified damages and are asking the court to compel Snap to stop practices that harm children.
“This assault did not happen in a vacuum – it happened because Snapchat’s product design made it easy for a predator to reach and manipulate an unsuspecting child,” said Matthew Bergman, founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center, which brought the suit on behalf of the plaintiffs. “Snap executives have long known that their features create a perfect environment for predators to exploit children, yet they have repeatedly failed to make the platform safe.”
This isn’t the first such lawsuit against Snap. New Mexico sued the company in 2024, saying the platform’s design features foster sextortion, sexual abuse and unwanted contact from adults to minors.
According to the lawsuit, Snap was well aware, but failed to warn parents, young users and the public that “sextortion was a rampant, ‘massive,’ and ‘incredibly concerning issue’ on Snapchat.”
Sextortion is a crime that involves a person pretending to be a peer coercing minors to send explicit images or videos of themselves, then threatening to distribute the material unless they are paid. The scam has resulted in numerous teen suicides, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez stated in a news release.
A judge denied the company’s motion to dismiss last year.
There are also individual lawsuits pending against the company, including one in Vermont on behalf of two 12-year-old girls who were sexually assaulted by an adult they met on Snapchat.
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