A Court Ruled That Snapchat Can Be Sued For Speedometer Filter

A woman crashed into a man while using a Snapchat filter and driving at the same time, and Snapchat now may be held liable for the crash.

By DAVID on June 14, 2018
(Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

There was a crash a while ago involving a driver who was using the speedometer filter on Snapchat. The driver crashed into another car, resulting in the other driver, Wentworth Maynard, being left with a permanent brain injury. Originally, Snapchat argued that they can’t control how people use their app. But a court in Georgia just ruled that yes, Snapchat can be held liable.

It happened back in 2015. A woman, Christal, was driving her car while Snapping. Her passenger, a pregnant woman, asked her to slow down because she was approaching 100mph. The pregnant woman says “I told her I was pregnant and asked her to slow down. Christal responded and said she was just trying to get the car to 100 MPH to post it on Snapchat. She said ‘I’m about to post it.'” She was distracted by her phone and didn’t notice Wentworth pulling out of an apartment complex. He was an Uber driver and was heading to pick up another customer. Christal, the speeding driver, struck the side of Wentworth’s car, leaving him with permanent brain damage. She was going 107 when she hit the other car.

Wentworth’s lawyer argues that Snapchat is “negligent in offering virtual trophies to users who uploaded pictures using the speed filter.” Snapchat argued that the situation falls into a “safe harbor” that says internet service providers can’t be held liable for what customers do online. It was determined that the immunity does not apply. Since Snapchat made the filter, and not a third-party programmer. For that reason, the defendant, Wentworth’s family, wants “to hold Snapchat liable for its own conduct, principally for the creation of the Speed Filter and its failure to warn users that the Speed Filter could encourage speeding and unsafe driving practices.” See some more info here, and please don’t text, or do anything else with a phone, while driving.

Around the site