US social media app under fire for promoting racial sterotypes
The popular US mobile app, Snapchat, is being hit with accusations of promoting racial stereotypes by turning users into Asian caricatures.
Snapchat released a filter transforming people’s faces into someone with squinty eyes, rosy cheeks and big teeth, prompting users to label the feature racist. The multimedia messaging app quickly deleted the filter when it became clear the design backfired.
The Californian-based social media giant, which has around 100 million active users, attempted to defend its actions, insisting that the lens was “anime-inspired” and “meant to be playful and never to offend,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday.
This isn’t the first time Snapchat has landed itself in hot water over its lenses. This latest controversy comes just months after the social media company released a Bob Marley filter that many condemned as the equivalent of “digital blackface”.
The Marley lens pasted the late singer’s face on Snapchat users, complete with cartoon dreadlocks.
“Yellowface” or “blackface” are terms used to describe the racism prevalent in American culture. The meaning also encompasses the systematic bias against Asians or Blacks in a white supremacist entertainment industry that portrays ethnic minorities as inferior.
The hugely popular app, which is valued to be worth up to a whopping $20 billion, has also had a reputation for being used for sexual purposes – also known “sexting”. The problem was so prevalent, that last year, millions of British school children under 18 were warned they could be put on a police database for sending explicit pictures of themselves. Child rights groups such as the NSPCC warn that apps that allow pictures to be sent online could be exploited by pedophiles.
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