Thornton mother among those suing Snapchat for role in son's death related to fentanyl
One look at Max Osterman's photo and you can see and feel the joy he brought to those around him, especially his mother.
"He was a beautiful baby. An absolutely beautiful baby I mean, not just bias," Kimberly Osterman laughed.
She says as a teen, her son faced some difficult struggles, and like so many others, he used the social media application, Snapchat, to connect with his friends.
In an attempt to understand the risks of social networking, she downloaded the app herself.
"I knew more of the surface because I wasn't using it like they're using it," she said.
With features like disappearing messages, "my eyes only" content, and "Snap Map," she says opened a door to a world she knew nothing about at the time.
You can see where everybody is if you weren't invited to a party if there is a party, it links you to people you don't know because of the Snap Map," Osterman said. "It's dangerous and they can make it safe they can make it a safe platform they have chosen not to make it a safe platform."
In 2021, a little more than a month from his 19th birthday, Max sent one of his last messages on the app, to a dealer he connected with to purchase Percocet.
The pill was laced with a deadly amount of fentanyl.
"It breaks a family up.. it broke us," Osterman said fighting back tears.
She is now one of eight families, all who have lost loved ones, filing a wrongful death lawsuit through the Social Media Victims Law Center.
The complaint alleges the social media giant created dangerous dependencies for its minor users, while designing and distributing dangerous tools to aid drug dealers.
"It's like a restaurant menu but it's all sorts of prescription drugs. They use geographic targeting to be able to focus on young people who are in the vicinity of those dealers. you can't turn a blind eye and pretend you have no responsibility for what happens," Matthew Bergman said.
Bergman is the lead attorney and founder of the law center.
"Just because this activity goes on online doesn't mean that the people who facilitate these drug sales are any less responsible," he said.
Their ultimate goal for the families involved is to prompt change.
"I don't want any other families to go through this," Osterman said.
Snapchat issued a statement when CBS News Colorado reached out for comments saying:
"The trafficking of fake prescription pills containing fentanyl is an urgent national crisis," a spokesperson for Snapchat said in an emailed statement. "We are devastated that these counterfeit drugs have taken the lives of so many people, and our hearts go out to families who have suffered unimaginable losses. We are committed to bringing every resource to bear to help fight this national crisis, both on Snapchat and across the tech industry overall."
The company's statement continued: "While we can't comment specifically on active litigation, we can share all the progress we have made in this area. We use cutting-edge technology to proactively find and shut down drug dealers' accounts, and we block search results for drug-related terms, instead redirecting Snapchatters to resources from experts about the dangers of fentanyl. We have also expanded our support for law enforcement investigations, promoted in-app educational videos warning about the dangers of counterfeit pills that have been viewed over 260 million times on Snapchat, and are partnering with the Ad Council, non-profit organizations, and other platforms on an unprecedented national public awareness campaign that launched in October."
