According to the Justice Department, an Arkansas man was sentenced to 30 Years in Prison and a lifetime supervised release. He tracked a girl 13 years old through Snapchat’s Location feature.
Officials said that Michael Ray Beam, 32, left a vape in his mailbox to exchange for explicit content.
Snapchat lets connected users see each other’s locations via the app. The feature can be turned on or off by users.
According to the DOJ, Beam used this function to locate the girl at her Texarkana (Arkansas) home.
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Michael Ray Beam, Arkansas, was sentenced to 30 year imprisonment followed by lifetime supervision release. He tracked the location of a 13-year old girl using Snapchat’s real time location feature. (Matt Cardy).
Beam also used Spanchat “to induce” the girl to send him nude photos and videos of her body, a violation of federal law, the DOJ stated in a press release.
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Investigators discovered multiple screen capture video recordings of child pornography that Beam had received via Snapchat.
Michael Ray Beam used Spanchat “to incite” a 13 year-old girl to send him nude photos and videos of her body. (Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto
Snapchat claims it has special protections that make it difficult for strangers find minors and to communicate with them. Snapchat users under 18 cannot have public profiles. Teens can only start speaking with other users if they agree to their friend requests. Snap has the technology to identify and report images and videos that contain child sexual abuse.
Snapchat has an in-app safety feature called “Family Center” that gives parents more insight into the conversations their teens are having on Snapchat.
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Beam had a digital file on his phone called “My Collections” that was taken by prosecutors. It contained “a number subfolders,” according to a plea agreement.
The court filing states that “in one of the nine screen-capture video, the Defendant can see to activate his screenside digital camera, which causes his face to briefly display on the phone’s LCD screen and thus be recorded as part the said video.”
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A screen-recording feature allows smartphone users to record any content on their screens. Snapchat alerts users when other people capture or record photos and videos through the app.
Beam was arrested by the Miller County Sheriff’s Office in September 2020. He pleaded not guilty.
