Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday filed a civil lawsuit against Snapchat on Monday, accusing the app of designing addictive features that pressure children into compulsive use while lying to parents about how much drug, alcohol and sexual content actually appears on the platform. The complaint, filed in Philadelphia County Court, zeroes in on Snapchat's daily streak feature, symbolized by a flame icon, and the company's practice of charging users to restore a broken streak once it lapses.
The three-count civil complaint, filed August 25 in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas, alleges Snapchat violated Pennsylvania's Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law and seeks civil penalties, mandatory marketing changes, and court orders restricting adult content from users under 17, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. As reported by CBS Pittsburgh, the complaint claims Snapchat is choosing profit at the cost of youth mental health, and that the company breached state consumer protection laws through addictive design and dishonest marketing.
Sunday said Snapchat encourages children to associate being more active on the app with having more friends and social acceptance, and that the company keeps users engaged through what he called an engrossing experience. Snapchat is used by half of American teens every day, per Pew Research Center figures cited in the CBS Pittsburgh report. Fox Business reported that Snap Inc. generated over $5.3 billion in North American revenue in 2024, part of which the state says came from monetizing engagement through paid streak restorations that charge users to maintain expired Snapstreaks.
Investigators Say a Fake 13-Year-Old Account Found Explicit Material
During the investigation that led to the lawsuit, an investigator from the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office created a Snapchat account using a 13-year-old's birthdate and was able to freely access content containing profanity, alcohol and drug references, and sexually explicit material, according to Fox Business. Sunday said Snapchat knowingly lies to consumers about the frequency of adult-themed material on its platform, and parents rely on app-store age ratings when making recommendations for their children even though Snapchat seeks and holds a 13-plus rating in major app stores.
The complaint also targets Snapchat's disappearing-content feature, which causes photos, videos and messages to disappear quickly. Sunday claimed the feature draws predators and cyberbullies and encourages children to post things they otherwise might not, arguing that content sent or posted on the internet is never truly gone. That allegation echoes a September 2024 lawsuit filed by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, which cited internal Snap documents showing the company received 10,000 sextortion reports per month by late 2022, as reported by Tech Policy Press.
Snap Says It Was Disappointed by the Move to Litigation
A Snap spokesperson said the allegations against the company misrepresent its platform and its approach to teen safety, and that Snapchat was designed to encourage self-expression and authentic connection with friends. The spokesperson said Snapchat opens to a camera rather than a feed of content, and that the company is focused on strengthening safeguards, tools and educational resources for users' safety, privacy and well-being. Snap also said it was disappointed Pennsylvania chose litigation rather than collaboration.
Dr. Gary Swanson, a child psychiatrist with Allegheny Health Network, said children's brains are not fully formed and they may not recognize the consequences of content they view online. Swanson said social media should carry restrictions similar to smoking and drinking, though he acknowledged restricting access will be difficult because children already have it in hand.
Part of a Broader Two-Pronged State Strategy
The Snapchat suit follows a similar civil lawsuit Sunday's office filed on August 11 against TikTok in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court under the same state consumer protection statutes, a case Hoodline previously reported. Both cases were prepared by a newly established Technology and Privacy Protection Unit within the state AG's Public Protection Division, built on findings from a May 2026 teenTALK report that surveyed 160 students across 35 Pennsylvania schools about social media addiction, according to that same coverage. Students in the state roundtables reported feeling trapped and overwhelmed by social algorithms, per the report.
Sunday said protecting children is an absolute priority of his office and described modern technology as having opened a wild west of potential threats to children. His office is also engaged in a multistate suit against Meta, and Sunday said he will continue exploring possible action against other companies, pushing for more safeguards along with design and marketing changes across the industry.
National Legal Tide Turning Against Platforms
Pennsylvania's action lands amid a wave of similar state and federal litigation. More than 3,100 personal injury and mental health lawsuits against social media companies, including Snap, Meta, TikTok and Alphabet, have been consolidated in federal multidistrict litigation in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, according to the Fob James Law Firm. On August 10, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected tech industry appeals in that litigation, holding that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act functions as an affirmative defense rather than absolute immunity, clearing the way for product-design lawsuits to proceed toward trial, the firm's analysis notes.
Snap confidentially settled individual bellwether claims in the federal youth addiction litigation in January 2026 before trial, even as other platforms faced jury verdicts, including a $6 million award against Meta and Google in March 2026, per the same account. In February, the Nevada Supreme Court rejected Snap's jurisdictional challenge and allowed Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford's state lawsuit against Snapchat to proceed to trial, a decision Hoodline covered in February that established platform design features are not automatically immune under federal law.
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