Snapchat launches ‘Break Laughter and Discipline’ filter in June – Variety

Snapchat has removed the app’s selfie filter, meaning Junero will be celebrated, telling users to “break smiles and chains” to unlock the augmented-reality animation.

In a statement, Snapchat’s parent company Snap Junior apologized for the filter.

“We sincerely apologize to the members of the Snapchat community who found this lens offensive,” a company spokesman said in a statement. Diversity. “An isolated group of Snapchat members were involved in creating the idea, but a version of the lens that was given live for Snapchatters this morning was not approved through our review process. We are investigating why this error occurred so that we can avoid it in the future. “

After the filter was launched on Friday morning, users began commenting in the bizarre way Snapchat is using the filter to “celebrate” June. “This Snapchat # Junior filter is … om … interesting,” wrote digital strategist Mark Lucky in one. Tweet. “Laugh to break the chain? All right then.”

Multimedia designer / developer Ashton Winger, who previously worked at Snap for more than three years, wrote in one Twitter post About the filter that “it happens when you have no black people on the product design team. As Snap ex, it’s extremely embarrassing. It doesn’t have to be that hard – how about an AR experience to tell you what your 229 million daily active users junior is?”

Another Snapchat user Tweets, “@Snapchat Why do you think Junior’s filter should include “smile” as the key to breaking the chains of slavery? It was extremely sensitive and frustrating. ”

June, also known as Independence Day, celebrates the end of slavery in the United States, and many organizations have taken it as a public holiday this year. When the Union Army General informed the black people in Galveston, Texas, that the Civil War was over and that they had been released, the date was marked June 19, 195 – two years after the signing of the Declaration of Liberation.

Snap’s public outcry over the junior filter comes after Business Insider reported last week that CEO Evan Spiegel said at an all-party meeting that Silap would not disclose diversity statistics about its employees publicly like other Silicon Valley companies. According to the BG report, Spiegel said he was concerned that doing so would “reinforce the idea that minority groups would be represented in the technology industry,” according to the BI report. Snap has previously said it is committed to revealing a variety of metrics “with more contextual and meaningful action plans.”

Snap, meanwhile, said earlier this month that citing the president’s remarks about “racial violence and injustice,” it has stopped publishing content from Donald Trump’s account in its Discovery Media section.

This is not the first time that Snapchat has been called for sensitive filters. On April 20, 2016, it released a Bob Marley-inspired filter that enhances the user’s skin color and adds dreadlocks, which has been criticized as a “digital blackface.” Later that year, another Snapchat filter drew users’ eyes diagonally, widened their cheeks, and made their front teeth more prominent when smiling, echoing some racist Asian caricatures.