West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey has sued Snap Inc., the company behind Snapchat, accusing it of deceiving parents and children about how safe the app is for young users — a case filed one day before the first anniversary of a teenager's death in a sextortion scheme that began on the platform.
The 107-page complaint, filed on November 5 in Kanawha County Circuit Court under West Virginia's Consumer Credit and Protection Act, says Snap marketed Snapchat as safe for children while its own internal records showed it exposed young users to sexual exploitation, harmful content and compulsive-use design.
What the lawsuit alleges
According to the attorney general's office, Snapchat "largely left parents and children to deal with problem accounts by themselves and missed opportunities to identify and intervene before potentially dangerous accounts could target other users." The complaint says the company knew the risks and concealed them while promoting the app to families.
The suit also targets Snap's "My AI" chatbot, alleging the company rushed its launch to children without adequate safety testing and misled families about what the chatbot does with their private conversations and location data.
Two deaths behind the case
The lawsuit follows the deaths of two West Virginia children who were targeted in sextortion schemes — scams in which predators trick children into sending private photos and then threaten to share them unless they are paid.
Bryce Tate, a 15-year-old honors student at Nitro High School in Kanawha County, died on November 6, 2025, hours after being targeted in a financial sextortion scheme that began on Snapchat. The suit was filed one day before the first anniversary of his death. In 2018, 12-year-old Cimarron Thomas of Bruceton Mills died after being contacted on Snapchat by a man in the United Kingdom.
McCuskey said the state would "hold the company accountable for this tragedy and the harms posed to all other kids in West Virginia."
What West Virginia wants — and the campaign that comes with it
The state is seeking a permanent injunction, civil penalties and court-ordered safety changes. Alongside the suit, McCuskey announced the Shield Initiative, a statewide education campaign run with the Bryce Tate Memorial Foundation to help students, parents and educators recognize and respond to sextortion and other online dangers. It will be funded with consumer education money secured through earlier victories against other social media and tech companies.
The case is the latest in a string of lawsuits by state attorneys general accusing Snap of misleading families about the safety of its app for minors. Pennsylvania and Texas have filed similar suits. The attorney general's office has published the full complaint online.
