Snap Inc. on Wednesday announced that it has stopped the promotion of the account of US President Donald Trump on its app's discover page, after concluding that the president's posts are “inciting racial violence and injustice”, according to The Hill.
A spokesperson for the company said that Trump’s account, which has over 1.5 million followers, will remain up, but will no longer be promoted.
“We are not currently promoting the President’s content on Snapchat’s Discover platform,” the spokesperson said, cited by The Hill. “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”.
Snapchat, which ordinarily promotes the accounts of news publishers, celebrities, public figures, as well as other elected officials, said that it would stop promoting the accounts of all those who would “incite racial violence, whether they do so on or off our platform”.
“We will make it clear with our actions that there is no grey area when it comes to racism, violence, and injustice – and we will not promote it, nor those who support it, on our platform,” the company said.
Later in the day, the Trump re-election campaign complained about Snapchat’s decision to stop promoting the president’s content, claiming that the social platform was attempting to “rig” the US 2020 presidential election in favor of the presumptive Democratic candidate, Joe Biden.
“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,” asserted Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, cited by The Hill.
The Trump supporter accused Snapchat of “voter suppression” by reducing the Republican president’s popularity ahead of the November election. There is no evidence, however, of the platform prioritizing one political rival over another, according to The Hill.
On 26 May, Trump signed an executive order calling for a series of legislative and legal actions to prevent popular social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms, from regulating user content, particularity Trump's content. The president’s move came after Twitter flagged one of his tweets regarding mail-in ballots as potentially misleading.
Several days later, Twitter slapped a ‘public interest notice’ on a Trump tweet regarding the ongoing protests across the US - protests triggered by the killing of African-American George Floyd by white policemen - saying the president violated rules concerning the glorification of violence.