Father sues Snapchat's parent company after son dies from fentanyl-laced pill
Sam Chapman, plaintiff in the Snap lawsuit, pushes for 'Sammy's Law' to protect children from danger online on 'America Reports.'
The father of a young fentanyl victim who said a drug dealer connected with his son on Snapchat for a transaction that led to the youth's death rejected Snap CEO Evan Spiegel's comments during a hearing Wednesday on online child exploitation.
Sam Chapman told "America Reports" his son Sammy was 16 when he died from a fentanyl pill he purchased over Snapchat and has since launched a lawsuit against the app's parent company, Snap.
Chapman expressed thorough dismay over what he heard from Spiegel and the other social media executives called to testify before the Senate on Wednesday, which also included X's Linda Yaccarino, TikTok's Shou Zi Chew and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg.
"I heard a lot of mealy-mouthed apologies and a little bit of perjury and really a bunch of people who weren't ready to support change," he said, adding that he and other parents simply want the number of deaths linked to social media on grounds of sexual exploitation or drugs to begin to go down.
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During the hearing, Spiegel testified that Snap proactively scans for known child sexual abuse material, drug-related and other harmful content and removes it.
"[We] deactivate and device-block offending accounts, preserve the evidence for law enforcement and report certain content to the relevant authorities for further action," he said.
In response, Chapman said that when Sammy died, law enforcement communicated to them that Snap was not replying to requests or helping with the investigation.
"After we got enough press, they finally helped with our case. But. I think that the snaps (Snapchat messages and posts) disappear, and they've created this dangerous atmosphere for kids where they think they can operate with impunity," he said.
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"Three quarters of our kids are on that platform, and all of the criminals and the sextortionists go there to find them."
Chapman said that what is needed is mandatory preservation of the app's "back-end" for police to be able to access in criminal situations.
In that regard, he added he is spearheading a push for Congress to pass "Sammy's Law," which would require social media platforms to provide "real-time application programming interfaces" for a parent or approved third-party to manage online interactions and account settings of their children.
The law was introduced in September by Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, D-Fla. and co-sponsored by Reps. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., Kim Schrier, D-Wash., and Mariannette Miller-Meeks, R-Iowa.
Jason Citron, CEO of Discord; Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snap; Shou Zi Chew, CEO of TikTok; Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X; and Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta. (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty)
In pushing for support for Sammy's Law, Wasserman-Schultz said in December that all parents "worry about what their child is seeing or receiving on social media" and that she is also a parent who is concerned about what her children are exposed to on social media "apps that profit from sharing messages which are intentionally designed to disappear without a trace."
During the hearing, Zuckerberg slowly rose and offered an apology to affected family members in the gallery upon stern rebuke and prodding from Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.,
"You're on national television. Would you like now to apologize to the victims who have been harmed?" Hawley said, before Zuckerberg turned to face the gallery.
However, when asked by a Fox News reporter about the subject later while he was getting into an SUV outside the Capitol, Zuckerberg said nothing.
"[P]arents could take care of all of this if we had visibility into our children's devices," Chapman said.
"We have bipartisan support [for Sammy's Law] because we believe that children don't have a party."