One million people have signed a petition calling on Snapchat to roll back its latest redesign.<\/p>\n
The changes were intended to separate interactions with friends from branded content – including that of celebrities and influencers.<\/p>\n
Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel\u00a0wrote in a blog post\u00a0that he believed blurring the two had contributed to the rise of fake news.<\/p>\n
However thousands of Snapchat users say that the new layout is hard to use.<\/p>\n
Nic Rumsey, who set up the petition, wrote that some are using Virtual Private Network (VPN) apps – which use servers abroad to mask the location of a device – in order to access the older version of the platform: “That’s how annoying this update has become,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Many ‘new features’ are useless or defeat the original purposes Snapchat has had for the past years.”<\/p>\n
The petition, posted on the change.org website, is one of several appealing to Snapchat to revert to its previous state.<\/p>\n
Users now swipe left to see and interact with their friends, and swipe right to see branded and celebrity content.<\/p>\n
Model Chrissie Teigen tweeted that she didn’t like feeling that her followers no longer felt like “friends” as a result.<\/p>\n
“How many people have to hate an update for it to be reconsidered?” she asked.<\/p>\n
Kylie Jenner asked her Twitter followers what they thought of the changes, and then agreed with a follower who replied that they hated it.<\/p>\n
Snapchat reiterated its statement that updates “can take a little getting used to”.<\/p>\n
“We hope the community will enjoy it once they settle in,” the firm said.<\/p>\n
Influencer value<\/strong><\/p>\n Rohan Midha, managing director of influencer marketing agency PMYB, told the BBC that Snapchat had made a mistake in removing celebrities and influencers – high profile individuals with lots of followers – from the “friends” section.<\/p>\n “They hadn’t realised the value that influencers add to the app,” he said.<\/p>\n “People want to follow influencers because they really like them, whereas Snapchat just sees them as brands.”<\/p>\n However Mr Midha added that he didn’t think the petition would force Snapchat into a u-turn.<\/p>\n “It doesn’t surprise me that so many people have signed it,” he said.<\/p>\n “But I don’t think this large Silicon Valley company is going to take notice of a petition.”<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One million people have signed a petition calling on Snapchat to roll back its latest redesign. The changes were intended to separate interactions with friends from branded content – including that of celebrities and influencers. Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel\u00a0wrote in a blog post\u00a0that he believed blurring the two had contributed to the rise of fake […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":391218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[106],"tags":[1082],"yoast_head":"\n