Poor Indians influence stars go against Snapchat

Hyderabad: Considering the profound influence of India on global technology particularly IT sector, forget companies, no country can afford to ignore our technology manpower. Donald Trump yet to feel the heat, but it’s quicker for Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel. Ever since he made controversial statement against India, stars turned against his Venice-based Italian image messaging and multimedia mobile application firm.

On the flip side of the development, some netizens by mistake downgraded and uninstalled Snapdeal, a New Delhi-based e-commerce company, instead of Snapchat. Snapchat on Sunday witnessed wrath of angry Indians after Spiegel’s controversial remarks saying “India is too poor to seriously consider expanding its user base.” Subsequently, its app ratings were hit worst as netizens hammered down it to ‘single star’ from ‘five star’ on App Store.

However, Spiegel’s denial on such remarks failed to do the damage control for the firm. According to the app info on App Store, the ‘Customer Ratings’ of the current version of the app was ‘single star’ (based on 6,099 ratings) and all versions’ rating was ‘one and half star’ (based on 9,527 ratings) as on Sunday morning. The rating for the app on Android Play Store was ‘four star’ (based on 11,932,996 ratings).

Majority of Indians began to uninstall app of Snapchat and give it poor ratings and reviews on various app stores. It was hectic Sunday for netizens, who balanced Spiegel’s poor remarks. Indians took the comment very seriously and took to social media to lash out at the statement from the CEO. #BoycottSnapchat became one of the top trending topics on Twitter with over 69,000 tweets. The violent response of Indians pulled the ratings of the app lower as the criticism against the CEO and the app increased.

Snapchat has over four million users in India as against an estimated active user base of 150 million globally. Snapchat is one of the fastest growing social media platforms. An average snap chatter spends around 25-30 minutes on this app every day. Its first release in September 2011 created a buzz among the users of bracket 18 to 34 years which is no longer the case, as the app has transcended the age barrier over time.

Over 50 per cent of millennials in the US prefer checking Snapchat over other social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, according to a recent survey. “First of all, I didn’t even want to give any freakin’ star to this app. Evan (CEO of Snapchat) shows how stupid he is by saying this. I bet 3/4th of his company is run by Indian employees. If he didn’t want to expand it to poor countries, then why is this app free? Why didn’t he put any charges on it?” a user wrote on App Store, condemning the CEO.

Some users wrote, “Poor India & Spain need better than Snapchat,” “Good bye, My Snapchat Account and Snap Inc. You’ll be product of gone by era and derision,” and “Poor Evan Spiegel.” The app was also trolled on Twitter. #boycottsnapchat became the most trending hashtag on Twitter overnight.

"I haven't seen any Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians etc Tweets yet. Thanks @Snapchat for Uniting us," a user tweeted. "I was addicted to @Snapchat but I love my country more than this app. Let's see how you earn without Indians. @evanspiegel #boycottsnapchat," another user wrote on twitter.

Some users even flagged the app for hateful content and left a message, "Dear @snapchatsupport, flagged you for hateful content. #boycottsnapchat". According to a report in Forbes on Thursday, Facebook's photo-sharing app Instagram surpassed Snapchat in daily active users of "Stories" feature, though the format was first launched by Snapchat in 2013.

Instagram's "Stories" feature was now used by more than 200 million people every day -- an increase of 50 million since January. On the other hand, Snapchat which launched the "Stories" format in October 2013, had 161 million daily active users in February. "Stories" feature is an ephemeral chain of photo and video clips with filters and special effects. More recently, Facebook and WhatsApp also introduced the feature, imitating Snapchat.