Users will no longer see Donald Trump’s post on Snapchat’s Discover
Snapchat is joining the ranks of Twitter to take a stand by making sure Donald Trump’s tweets are not found on the social media’s discover page.
This decision is coming on the heels of the recent occurrence in the United State and the President’s tone deaf approach. Many people have alledged that Trump’s social media posts incites violence and are also offensive to Black people and people of color.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the company’s spokewoman, Rachel Racusen clearly stated that “We will not amplify voices who incite racial violence and injustice by giving them free promotion on Discover,”
The tone for this decision was set in a lengthy memo sent to staff on Sunday night by SnapChat CEO, Evan Spiegel where he highlighted extensively how deep racial injustice in America is.
“As for Snapchat, we simply cannot promote accounts in America that are linked to people who incite racial violence, whether they do so on or off our platform. Our Discover content platform is a curated platform, where we decide what we promote. 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. We may continue to allow divisive people to maintain an account on Snapchat, 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.”
The role of social media in moderating content shared by its users has come up more often in discussion forums lately.
Twitter added a warning label to the tweet of the President of the United States of America for violating its rule against glorifying violence.The social media platform used what it called a “public interest notice” to flag the president’s post about the protests and violence in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Facebook on the other hand has refused to ‘meddle’ . Mark Zuckerberg has condemned the fact checking of Trump’s tweets stating that private companies are not arbiters of truth. Trumps posts that were flagged on Twitter were left on Facebook despite calls from different groups internally and externally to take the posts down.
This perceived nonchalance to racial injustice has resulted in a face off between Facebook’s management and some members of staff. Some of whom called the CEO out on Twitter and also staged virtual walkout to drive home their point.
