Their kids died after buying drugs on Snapchat. Now the parents are suing

Technology@lemmy.world – 161 points – 12 months ago

Their kids died after buying drugs on Snapchat. Now the parents are suing::Suit claims app features like disappearing messages and geolocating users make kids easy targets for dealers

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Lmao, what? They might as well sue phone manufacturers for giving kids access to internet and app stores where they can install apps that enables drug dealers to reach kids or whatever

Except for

Even after she created her own account and found her son’s dealer posting images with hundreds of pills, Mendoza’s reports to the help center went unanswered, and it took eight months for them to flag his account. “It was really disheartening,” she said.

And

Other problematic features include notifying individuals when another person screenshots their post, the ability to geolocate fellow users and algorithms that suggest new connections based on demographics.

"I will ask snapchat to stop doing bad things, but I will not delete their app from my kids smartphone. It's their responsibility, not mine"

Wait, so the parent knew about this issue for over eight months and did nothing to actually get their kid help?

Who said they didn't?

The fact that they still allowed their kid to have access to the drug dealing app/device that has the drug dealing app on it.

Or they removed it and then the kid put it back. Yes, they might have been able to take the device away entirely but that's not really effective, and the strong parental controls are only available for kids up to 13 (at least on Android).

That doesn't absolve Google or Apple for facilitating the download of the app where drug dealers frolic.

Perhaps SnapChat files a counter suit on the parents for buying their kid a smartphone, paying for service, and not putting parental controls on the device to keep them from using apps that they don’t want their kid accessing

Google parental controls shut down automatically after a certain age.

Not much of a counter suit. It's legal to buy your kid a smartphone and it's legal to not put parental controls on it.