Snapchat has announced it will stop “promoting” the account of US president Donald Trump on the image messaging platform, as tensions between White House and social media platforms escalates.
The decision follows Mr Trump saying that “vicious dogs” and “ominous weapons” would have been used on protesters if they had breached the White House fence.
The decision by the app means the president will no longer feature in its Discover section, which is a shop window for users to view new content.
Snapchat’s parent company Snap said: “Racial violence and injustice have no place in our society and we stand together with all who seek peace, love, equality, and justice in America.”
President Trump has more than one million followers on Snapchat, according to the Bloomberg news agency. It said the app is seen as being a “key battleground” by Mr Trump’s re-election campaign because it offers a way to reach first-time voters.
The president’s account will not be suspended or deleted.
However, the fact it will not feature in Discover means that his posts will only be seen by people who subscribe to or search for his account directly.
It comes after Twitter placed fact-check alerts on two of the president’s tweets last week, which had described postal voting as “fraudulent” and claimed there would be problems with the absentee ballot system in the November US elections.
A further Trump tweet threatening that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” was then obscured with a warning for “glorifying violence” as anti-police brutality protests erupted following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, an unarmed black man who died in police custody on Monday, May 25 after being arrested for allegedly forging a cheque.
The president subsequently signed an executive order seeking to curb legal protections offered to the industry.
Snapchat’s action will also put further pressure on Facebook.
Its chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has resisted internal and external calls to intervene in regard to posts on its platform. Mr Zuckerberg has said the firm’s free speech principles mean the president’s posts should be left up unaltered.
