Snapchat Petition Gains More Than One Million Signatures
Snapchat, an image messaging and multimedia mobile application, has been receiving several criticisms from its users since it rolled out its latest redesign.
Snapchat introduced their update on Nov. 29 last year. The company posted on their blog that the blurred line between professional content creators and regular users has prompted some disadvantageous effects like fake news.
"The new Snapchat separates the social from the media," the blog read. With this, the Snapchat update has separated chats and stories of users' friends from the stories of publishers, creators, and the community.
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However, not many users appreciated this update. Users have called the redesign confusing and hard to use. In the Change.org website, a petition website operated by for-profit Change.org, Inc., user Nic Rumsey started a petition with the title "Remove the new Snapchat update."
"Many users have found that it has not made the app easier to use, but has in fact made many features more difficult," the petition read. The petition is aimed at convincing Snapchat to retract its latest update and go "back to the basics, before the new 2018 update." There are currently 1,045,030 signatures to date.
However, Snapchat Chief Executive Evan Spiegel has shown no signs of withdrawing the app amid the backlash. "We are excited about what we are seeing so far," Spiegel said, told Variety.
As for the major complaint of users that artists and influencers no longer feel like friends since the redesign, Spiegel very honestly addressed this at Goldman Sach's Internet and Technology conference in San Francisco on Thursday.
"One of the complaints we got was 'Aww...I used to feel like this celebrity was my friend, and now they don't feel like my friend anymore.' And we're like, Exactly. They're not your friends," the CEO quipped, told Mashable.
As of February this year, Snapchat has almost 200 million daily active users.
