President Trump’s controversial posts about the George Floyd protests have prompted Snapchat to stop freely promoting his content on the social media app.
Trump’s official account still remains up on Snapchat. However, the app is no longer promoting the president’s content via its Discover platform, where you can view pictures and clips from other users, including celebrities, public figures, and media outlets.
Snap, the company behind the app, says it did so because the president has been calling for violence against the protests breaking out across the country. “We will not amplify voices who incite racial violence and injustice by giving them free promotion on Discover,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday. “Racial violence and injustice have no place in our society and we stand together with all who seek peace, love, equality, and justice in America.”
The move comes as Trump has been pressuring US social media companies to stop moderating his posts and threatening those that do with potential regulation. The president has gone out of his way to slam Twitter, which fact-checked two of his tweets about mail-in voting, and slapped a warning label over another that implied looters in a Minneapolis protest last week be shot.
Facebook, on the other hand, has decided to leave up Trump’s controversial posts without any disclaimer, but the decision has infuriated some employees, who’ve been speaking out.
As for Snapchat, the company says no user has the right to be promoted over the company’s Discover platform, which was never designed to be a “public town square.”
(Photo by Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch)
“Our Discover content platform is a curated platform, where we decide what we promote,” wrote Snap CEO Evan Spiegel in a memo over the weekend. “We have spoken time and again about working hard to make a positive impact, and we will walk the talk with the content we promote on Snapchat.
“This does not mean that we will remove content that people disagree with, or accounts that are insensitive to some people,” he added. “There are plenty of debates to be had about the future of our country and the world. But there is simply no room for debate in our country about the value of human life and the importance of a constant struggle for freedom, equality, and justice.”
Trump can still circulate content on Snapchat to users who subscribe or search for it. According to Engadget, ads from Trump’s re-election campaign also remain unaffected. However, Spiegel is hinting that his company is mulling a possible ban of Trump’s account.
“We may continue to allow divisive people to maintain an account on Snapchat,” Spiegel wrote in his memo, “as long as the content that is published on Snapchat is consistent with our community guidelines, but we will not promote that account or content in any way.”
In a statement, Brad Parscale, Trump 2020 campaign manager, said “Spiegel would rather promote extreme left riot videos and encourage their users to destroy America than share the positive words of unity, justice, and law and order from our President.”
According to Bloomberg, Trump’s Snapchat account has over 1.5 million followers.
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