New Mexico
New Mexico sues Snap Inc. after investigation finds 'dark web' of child abuse
New Mexico’s attorney general has filed a lawsuit against the company behind Snapchat, alleging that site’s design and policies foster the sharing of child sexual abuse material and facilitate child sexual exploitation.
Attorney General Raúl Torrez filed the lawsuit against Snap Inc. Thursday in state court in Santa Fe. In addition to sexual abuse, the lawsuit claims the company also openly promotes child trafficking, drugs and guns.
Last December, Torrez filed a similar lawsuit against Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, saying it allows predators to trade child pornography and solicit minors for sex on its platforms. That suit is pending.
Snap’s “harmful design features create an environment where predators can easily target children through sextortion schemes and other forms of sexual abuse,” Torrez said in a statement. Sexual extortion, or sextortion, involves persuading a person to send explicit photos online and then threatening to make the images public unless the victim pays money or engages in sexual favors.
“Snap has misled users into believing that photos and videos sent on their platform will disappear, but predators can permanently capture this content and they have created a virtual yearbook of child sexual images that are traded, sold, and stored indefinitely,” Torres said.
In a statement, Snap said it shares Torrez’s and the public’s concerns about the online safety of young people.
“We understand that online threats continue to evolve and we will continue to work diligently to address these critical issues,” the company based in Santa Monica, California, said. We have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in our trust and safety teams over the past several years, and designed our service to promote online safety by moderating content and enabling direct messaging with close friends and family.”
According to the complaint, minors report having more online sexual interactions on Snapchat than any other platform, and more sex trafficking victims are recruited on Snapchat than on any other platform.
Prior to the lawsuit, New Mexico conducted a monthslong undercover investigation into child sexual abuse images on Snapchat. According to Torrez’s statement, the investigation revealed a “vast network of dark web sites dedicated to sharing stolen, non-consensual sexual images from Snap,” finding more than 10,000 records related to Snap and child sexual abuse material in the last year. This included information related to minors younger than 13 being sexually assaulted.
As part of the undercover investigation, the New Mexico department of justice set up a decoy Snapchat account for a 14-year-old named Heather, who found and exchanged messages with accounts with names like “child.rape” and “pedo_lover10.”
Snapchat, the lawsuit alleges, “was by far the largest source of images and videos among the dark web sites investigated.” Investigators also found Snapchat accounts that openly circulated and sold child abuse images directly on the platform.
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New Mexico
Snow storm impacts New Mexico, Gun crimes, Tijeras bridge, Toxic algae blooms, Early voting turnout
Thursday’s Top Stories
Thursday’s Five Facts
[1] Snow moves in with colder & breezier day around New Mexico – A winter storm continues moving through New Mexico. Snow will cause travel impacts in parts of the state Thursday morning before drier and colder weather moves in. Snow will wrap up by mid Wednesday morning, allowing for the snowy and icy roads to clear up by the late morning. While it will be drier Thursday, the storm will leave behind much cooler temperatures Thursday afternoon. Friday morning will feature some of the coldest temperatures we’ve felt so far this season.
[2] Lawmakers suggest new rules after new data released by ATF on gun crime in NM – A new report reveals that 78% of all gun crimes in the state are committed with firearms that were legally purchased from licensed dealers. From there, most of these guns are sold to individuals who are prohibited from buying firearms legally. Two Democratic lawmakers have announced their plans to introduce a bill that would create stricter rules for gun sellers, including training on what to watch for when selling to repeat buyers. Another proposed bill for the upcoming session would limit the sale of military-grade weapons in the state.
[3] Emergency funds will rebuild washed-out Tijeras bridge – Bernalillo County officials approved roughly $3 million for the Tijeras Watershed Restoration Project. The project was almost done, but in July, a storm swept through the watershed and heavily damaged a pedestrian bridge and the arroyo around it. They hope restoring the watershed to a wider and flatter area will force stormwater to slow down, creating a floodplain that can support habitat and absorb water. The new pedestrian bridge could take longer because construction materials are in high demand.
[4] Toxic algae bloom advisories lifted for five New Mexico lakes – The New Mexico Environment Department has lifted advisories for harmful algae blooms at five New Mexico lakes. Those advisories were issued earlier this fall for Eagle Nest, Maloya, Lower Charette, Snow, and Hopewell lakes. Toxic algae can cause health problems for both people and animals.
[5] Strong turnout reported for runoff early voting in Albuquerque – The Bernalillo County Clerk’s Office said it is seeing a strong turnout for the Albuquerque mayoral runoff. Since early voting began on Monday, the clerk said nearly 45,000 people have cast their ballots. That includes nearly 30,000 in person. Early voting runs through Saturday. Election day is Tuesday.
New Mexico
Power restored in Edgewood and Moriarty after widespread outages during storm
EDGEWOOD, N.M. – Hundreds of residents and businesses in Edgewood and Moriarty went without power for a while during the of Wednesday night’s winter storm.
An outage map from Central New Mexico Electric Cooperative showed large clusters of outages as of 7 p.m. on Wednesday. By 7:30 p.m. power was restored.
On a social media post, CNMEC said: “We have received word that our power supplier, Tri-State, has lost a transmission line. Power will be out for the entire area until they can make repairs. We will post updates as we receive them.”
The outages came as the first winter storm of the season arrived in the East Mountains.
New Mexico
New Mexico United to host open tryouts
Tryouts are Jan. 10 at Kraemer Fields.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — If you’ve ever wanted to see if you could play for the New Mexico United soccer club, your time is coming!
New Mexico United is hosting its next round of open tryouts Jan. 10, at Kraemer Fields in Albuquerque. This marks the club’s fifth open tryout since its inaugural 2019 season.
Since it started, United has signed identified key players and even signed some to their first-team squad, including Josh Goss and Phillip Beigl.
Tryouts are open to male players who are 17 years and older. Additional details, including registration information, can be found here at this website.
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