Snapchat will permanently ban President Trump’s account on January 20, Axios found out, after indefinitely blocking it last week after the Capitol siege.
Why it matters: The Trump campaign and the digital team relied on Snapchat as a key platform to reach younger audiences before the company started limiting its reach in June. Most Snapchat users are under 30 years old.
What is happening: “Last week, we announced an indefinite suspension of President Trump’s Snapchat account and assessed which long-term actions are in the best interest of our community on Snapchat,” a spokesman told Axios.
- “In the interest of public security and based on your attempts to spread misinformation, hate speech and incite violence, which are clear violations of our guidelines, we have made the decision to permanently close your account.”
Details: Trump’s report in recent months has repeatedly broken Snapchat’s rules against disinformation, hate speech and glorification or incitement to violence, company sources say.
- A source told Axios that the Trump account tried to violate policies “dozens of times”. After each incident, Snapchat immediately removed its content before it gained a lot of visibility and sent notices to its team.
- The change was triggered not just by actions on Snapchat, however, but by Trump’s track record of inciting violence on other platforms, company sources say. Snapchat leaders felt that banning Trump was a matter of broad public security.
Flashback: Citing the social effects of Trump’s fiery rhetoric, Snapchat in June stopped promoting its account in the “Discover” section, which features professional and prominent content.
- This preventive action meant that Trump’s account was not visible to Snapchat users unless they chose to sign up or search for him.
The big picture: Snapchat follows Twitter, Shopify and some other platforms by permanently banning Donald Trump’s account after last week’s events.
- Last week, Snapchat was the first platform to announce that it would suspend Trump’s account indefinitely. Many other platforms have placed temporary restrictions on your account.
Be smart: Snapchat was able to avoid most of the regulatory and industry pressure around disinformation, in part because it has stricter standards in relation to the way it polices content.
- The app does not have a public news feed so that unverified content goes viral and keeps user-generated content physically separate from professional content verified in the Discover section of Snapchat.
- Snapchat also routinely blocks certain keywords, like “Stop theft”, from appearing in your search bar.
What to watch: The siege of Capitol Hill has already started a conversation about how social media platforms are structured and monitored.
- While Snapchat is smaller than platforms like Facebook and Google, its architecture has proven effective both in limiting disinformation at scale and in preventing malicious actors from coming together and planning violence in the real world.
Go deeper: Snapchat blocks Trump’s account amid chaos in Washington