Snapchat Won’t Promote Donald Trump’s Account Over Concern Of Amplifying Voices “Who Incite Racial Violence”

Ted Johnson
·3 min read

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Snapchat said on Wednesday that it would stop promoting Donald Trump’s account on its Discover platform over concerns that his messages have amplified racial violence.

“We are not currently promoting the president’s content on Snapchat’s Discover platform,” the company said in a statement. “We will not amplify voices who incite racial violence and injustice by giving them free promotion on Discover. 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.”

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Trump’s content is still available to users who subscribe or search for it, but the Discover platform was designed to be curated, with choices made over what is promoted and what is not. The decision on Trump’s account was made over the weekend, according to a company spokesperson.

The company’s action follows that of Twitter last week, which put a fact-check link on two of Trump’s tweets and an advisory on another. When Trump tweeted on Friday that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” Twitter put a label on it saying that it ran afoul of its rules against “glorifying violence.”

Trump tweeted on Saturday that protesters who breach the White House fence “would have been greeted with the most vicious dogs, and most ominous weapons, I have ever seen.” That tweet drew criticism, as it conjured images of actions taken against civil rights protesters in the 1960s by segregationist authorities in the south.

On Monday, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel wrote that they “simply cannot promote accounts in America that are linked to people who incite racial violence, whether they do so on or off our platform.”

He added, “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.”

Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign manager, said in a statement, “Radical Snapchat CEO Evan 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.

“Snapchat hates that so many of their users watch the President’s content and so they are actively engaging in voter suppression. If you’re a conservative, they do not want to hear from you, they do not want you to vote. They view you as a deplorable and they do not want you to exist on their platform.”

In contrast to Snapchat and Twitter, Facebook is taking a hands off approach to Trump’s content. In a call with Facebook employees on Monday, he said that the president’s social media posts did not violate their guidelines, according to The New York Times.

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