A grieving Birmingham family says enough is enough, as they’ve joined a lawsuit seeking damages from the social media company Snapchat over the death of their son.
The suit claims the social media app allows drug dealers to operate on the platform and then hide from authorities and parents. The issue at hand is Snapchat’s disappearing message feature.
There are currently 10 parents involved in the suit. Of the 10, nine lost children to drug deaths, including fentanyl-laced pills purchased from drug dealers hiding in plain sight on Snapchat.
The complaint runs 144 pages and explains in excruciating detail the agony the parents experienced in losing their children to drugs.
Jack McCarthy was 19 years old when he died in September of 2021. The complaint shows the pills McCarthy acquired from a dealer he allegedly found on Snapchat.
Attorney Matthew Bergman from the Social Media Victims Law Center admits McCarthy had become so addicted to the app that he had been losing sleep and bought Adderall and Oxycodone.
“Unbeknownst to him, he ingested enough fentanyl to kill two men, and his mother found him dead on the kitchen table,” said Bergman.
In order to warn other parents of the dangers, the McCarthy family joined in the lawsuit knowing there was shared blame to go around.
“Obviously, McCarthy made a bad decision to purchase drugs, not thinking they were laced with fentanyl, but Snapchat facilitated that, we alleged, and as consequence, there’s some responsibility for leading to this tragic situation.”
Snapchat sent a lengthy statement to Local 4, saying:
“The trafficking of fake prescription pills containing fentanyl is an urgent national crisis. We are devastated that these counterfeit drugs have taken the lives of so many people, and our hearts go out to families who have suffered unimaginable losses. We are committed to bringing every resource to bear to help fight this national crisis, both on Snapchat and across the tech industry overall.”
“Several allegations in the complaint appear to be wholly inaccurate. While we can’t comment specifically on active litigation, we can share all the progress we have made in this area. We use cutting-edge technology to proactively find and shut down drug dealers’ accounts, and we block search results for drug-related terms, instead redirecting Snapchatters to resources from experts about the dangers of fentanyl. We have also expanded our support for law enforcement investigations, promoted in-app educational videos warning about the dangers of counterfeit pills that have been viewed over 260 million times on Snapchat, and are partnering with the ad council, non-profit organizations, and other platforms on an unprecedented national public awareness campaign that will launch next week.”
Snapchat spokesperson
