Snaphat removes controversial Juneteenth filter that asked users to ‘smile’ to break chains

This Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2017, photo shows the Snapchat app on a mobile device in New York. | Richard Drew, AP

Snapchat removes the app after strong feedback

Snapchat appears to have deleted a new filter that prompted users to “smile and break the chains,” which was released to celebrate Juneteenth.

• According to The Verge, critics slammed the controversial filter for tone deafness since it required people to smile so that chains would break.
• The filter also reportedly included a Pan-African flag in the background, according to The Verge.
• See the filter used below from a post by Mark Luckie, a digital strategist and former journalist.
• Criticism began after Luckie shared the filter on Twitter, per CNBC.

This SnapChat #Juneteenth filter is...um...interesting.

Smile to break the chains? Okay then. pic.twitter.com/Wyob3kT3ew

— Mark S. Luckie (@marksluckie) June 19, 2020

Juneteenth is the celebration of the day that Texas learned slavery had ended in the United States, as the Deseret News reported. The day happened about two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

“Juneteenth is a unifying holiday,” Steve Williams, president of the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation, told USA Today. “It is the completion of the celebration of freedom in America.”

from Deseret News https://ift.tt/2YPX9yf