West Virginia sues Snap over child-safety claims and alleged AI chatbot risks

Snapchat’s assurances to families concealed risks rather than protecting children, West Virginia alleges in a new lawsuit against Snap. Attorney General JB McCuskey filed the consumer-protection case on November 5, 2026, challenging the company’s safety claims and alleging failures involving sexual exploitation, addictive features and its My AI chatbot.

The 107-page complaint, filed in Kanawha County Circuit Court under the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act, seeks both financial remedies and independent monitoring. Its accusations are allegations, not court findings. The state argues that Snap concealed safety failures and prioritized engagement and advertising revenue over protections for minors.

My AI’s rollout and privacy promises face scrutiny

The AI allegations concern My AI, Snapchat’s generative chatbot powered by OpenAI technology, which became broadly available in April 2023. According to WV News’s account of the complaint, the state alleges Snap rushed it to minors after testing it with paying Snapchat+ subscribers. Those subscribers were not told they were serving as test subjects, the complaint says.

The filing cites tests in which the bot allegedly advised someone posing as a 15-year-old on hiding the smell of alcohol and marijuana. In another example, it allegedly suggested romantic settings to a user posing as a 12-year-old planning to meet a 31-year-old man. These are test interactions cited by the state, rather than accounts of those encounters taking place.

Privacy is another part of the challenge. The complaint alleges that My AI accesses location data even when users enable Ghost Mode. It also alleges that private interactions are transmitted to OpenAI and shared with Microsoft Advertising to serve targeted commercial links. The state frames those practices as failures of disclosure, accusing Snap of misleading consumers about privacy.

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

West Virginia’s complaint, quoted by Bloomberg Law

Internal records underpin the moderation allegations

Beyond the chatbot, the lawsuit draws on internal corporate records and documents unsealed in multidistrict litigation. It cites May 2022 records indicating that 96.7% of user-reported accounts received no review, with users instead prompted to block the offender. An April 2021 audit allegedly found that 86.3% of sexual content detected by automated systems expired before human review.

The complaint also contrasts Snap’s assurances to Congress that its Trust & Safety team worked around the clock with October 2022 internal documents describing staffing as “down to the bone” and lacking full 24/7 coverage. Those historical records form part of the state’s argument that the company’s public safety promises did not match its internal operations.

The state wants oversight as well as penalties

West Virginia’s requested remedies reach beyond a single payout. The complaint asks for:

• A permanent injunction and independent monitoring of the company.
• Civil penalties of up to $5,000 for each willful violation.
• Consumer restitution and disgorgement, requiring the surrender of profits.

McCuskey announced the lawsuit alongside the family of Bryce Tate, a 15-year-old who died by suicide in November 2025 after a financial sextortion scheme that the complaint says began on Snapchat. The attorney general also pledged funds from earlier technology litigation for the Shield Initiative, a school and public-awareness campaign created by the Bryce Tate Memorial Foundation. Its message to children is “Stop. Screenshot. Show Someone.”