Snapchat decided to honor Juneteenth by using augmented reality (AR) to interact with the chains of slavery.
A new filter asked users to “smile and break the chains” in order to destroy the animated chains.
After much-deserved backlash, Snapchat’s parent company, Snap has issued an apology for the filter.
“We deeply apologize to the members of the Snapchat community who found this Lens offensive,” a company spokesperson said in a statement to Variety. “A diverse group of Snap team members were involved in developing the concept, but a version of the Lens that went live for Snapchatters this morning had not been approved through our review process. We are investigating why this mistake occurred so that we can avoid it in the future.”
They clearly don’t have a single Black person in the room making these decisions.
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
