Snap Judgment

“Snapchat’s popularity is based on its automatically disappearing messages. It thrives on evanescence, unlike Instagram and Facebook, which retain every message or photo sent and only recently began offering the option of vanishing messages. Snapchat users can be silly, or naughty, because everything disappears within 24 hours by default. The app attracts minors who want to hide things from their parents, and drug dealers who want to hide evidence from police.” The DEA says that criminal drug networks are “now in every home and school in America because of the internet apps on our smartphones.” Can a platform be liable for the ways some people use it? One case could lead us toward an answer. Bloomberg (Gift Article): Fentanyl Almost Killed Michael Brewer. Now He Wants Snap to Pay. “A lawsuit arguing that Snapchat helped dealers sell children deadly counterfeit drugs could change the internet as we know it.”

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