By Jorge Casuso

August 4, 2025 -- Unredacted portions of a lawsuit against Santa Monica's largest employer, Snap, Inc., offer "new alarming details" of how drug dealers and sex predators use its app to target children, according to Utah State officials who filed the suit.

The 90-page complaint filed on June 30 notes that Snapchat's "vanishing design feature" gives teens "a false sense of security, leading them to believe their photos and messages disappear forever after being viewed."

This, the lawsuit charges, "encourages them to share riskier content" used by drug dealers and sexual predators to sell them illegal drugs, including fentanyl, and "extort their victims for money or additional sexual favors," officials said.

According to the unredacted portions made puclic Tuesday, Snap "internally admitted being 'over-run' with sexual extortion and that it 'takes under a minute to use Snapchat to be in a position to purchase illegal and harmful substances,'" officials said.

The unredacted portions of the complaint also reveal that 96 percent of "abuse reports" filed with Snapchat’s in-app reporting feature are "not reviewed by the app’s Trust and Safety Team," officials said.

"One Snapchat account was reported 75 different times for mentioning 'nudes, minors, and extortion,' and remained active for 10 months," according to the press release.

Snap, Inc., which agreed last week to unredact all but a few paragraphs in the complaint, has criticized the lawsuit, according to a report in the Salt Lake Tribune.

“Last year, a social media law passed in Utah was preliminarily enjoined after the court ruled it was likely unconstitutional, violating the First Amendment’s protection of free speech,” the Snap spokesperson said in a statement quoted by The Tribune.

“The Utah Attorney General is resorting to civil litigation as a means to circumvent the court and impose age verification requirements and age-related restrictions in ways that are unconstitutional.”

So far, the families of 63 victims between the ages of 14 and 22 have filed fentanyl lawsuits against Snapchat across the country, according to the Social Media Victims Law Center, noting that "only two of the victims survived."

Claims filed by the Center in 2022 in LA County Superior Court allege that Snapchat's "unique" design "connects predatory drug dealers with vulnerable teenagers who are not seeking to purchase drugs."

A demurrer filed by Snap seeking to dismiss the claims was rejected in January 2024, according to the Center. The ruling was stayed by the California Court of Appeals,

"Over half a dozen bell weather cases are likely to be selected at a hearing on August 25," according to the Center.

Snap, Inc. has rapidly become Santa Monica's largest employer, with its workforce surging to more than 5,000 employees, making it one of the Metro area's' largest tech employers and a driving force behind the rise of "Silicon Beach."

Early last year, Snap signed a long-term lease for more than 465,000 square feet at Santa Monica Business Park, making it one of "the largest office deals for greater Los Angeles in the wake of the pandemic," according to CoStar, a leading website for the commercial property industry.

Snap's CEO Evan Spiegel, who was the keynote speaker at the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce's 100th anniversary event, said that over the past two years, Snapchat's subscription service has generated "over half a billion dollars."

"But ultimately," Spiegel added, "it’s about continuing to build products that people love and use every day."

To read the full complaint, including newly unredacted details, click here