Esta semana, padres que perdieron a su hijos tras consumir pastillas falsas envenenadas con Fentanilo, demanderon a la popular red social “Snapchat”, alegando que esa red social facilitó que los niños, sin saberlo, obtuvieran las pastillas con la droga, y terminó con his lives.
Currently, five lawsuits have already been filed against this social network that is very popular with young people. Dozens of families allege that it was this platform that allowed children and young people to obtain adulterated pills.
Daniel Puerta would have turned 20 this week, but instead of celebrating, his father and several families have sued Snapchat, the social network they say got them fake drugs poisoned with the powerful fentanyl, an epidemic that kill young people. and children.
“Snapchat functions as the largest free drug marketplace in the world,” said Jaime Puerta, his son who died of drug poisoning.
Adrián de Jesús also died after consuming an adulterated drug, his mother could see that supposedly through Snapchat he contacted the drug dealer who gave him the pill which unknowingly was actually pure fentanyl .
“I was able to open my son’s phone, and there’s evidence that investigators could see, and it was Snapchat,” said María Ortega, her son died of drug poisoning.
Billboards erected in Los Angeles and Orange County raise awareness of the dangers of fentanyl as part of a campaign to save lives.
These parents filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court to have Snapchat change its platform.
“We have 5 lawsuits involving 63 families, the attorney told us,” said Matt Bergman, attorney at the Social Media Victims Law Center.
And he claims that of all the families he is represented in, in all but one case, the children got the Snapchat-tainted drug, the lawyer said.
“In all but one case, the kids got the tainted drug from Snapchat,” he alleged.
In the past, Snapchat spokespersons have said they capture over 80% of illicit activity on their platform, noting that:
“We use state-of-the-art technology to detect and eliminate the presence of drug dealers attempting to abuse our platform. Additionally, we block search results with content associated with dangerous drugs.”
But according to these parents, the deaths of more young people continue to occur.
“Parents should tell their children about this platform, which is designed for harmful activities, very bad for children,” he said.
We don’t want more parents going through this pain, we don’t want more deaths, there are so many children dying every day, this has to stop,” he said.
Regarding this lawsuit, Telemundo 52 contacted Snapchat again, and through a statement to our sister network NBC, they said the lawsuit was full of false accusations, although they have yet to comment. our request.
Parents will hold another protest outside the Santa Monica headquarters on May 12.