This story was updated to include comments from the Wisconsin Union.
The Wisconsin Union, UW-Madison’s student union, has announced that it is “stepping away” from social media app Snapchat after the social media photo sharing and chat app produced two image-altering filters that were widely perceived as racist.
The latest, released and quickly removed last week, allowed users to place what the company called an “anime-inspired” face onto photos of themselves. Many users called it “yellowface.” Earlier this year, Snapchat offered a similar filter allowing users to impose reggae artist Bob Marley’s face onto theirs, prompting criticisms for promoting “blackface.”
“We are working to be an inclusive, open space for everyone on campus and we felt that Snapchat wasn’t doing the same,” said Union spokesperson Stephanie Webendorfer. in an email to Madison365. “There’s a disconnect if we say inclusivity is important to us but we use a social media platform that doesn’t appear to hold those values. We felt this was one way to start conversations about the need for empathy and solutions, not further division. The university community has been very supportive.”
Announcing the move in a Facebook post, the Union said it was taking a cue from social media management service Buffer, which also announced it was “taking a break” from Snapchat.
“The Wisconsin Union stands for a lot of things,” the Union post reads in part. “We do not, however, stand for people being shamed and minimized. We know we’re not perfect. But we’re working hard to be a place where everyone feels welcome, everyone feels safe. We strive to be a place to have hard conversations about what’s going on in the world today. And we feel that we can’t be that place if we’re using platforms that don’t support those conversations.”
The Union started using Snapchat during the 2015/16 academic year to “share the fun, behind the scenes life at the Union, including event promotions and live coverage,” Webendorfer said.
Webendorfer said it’s not clear when or whether the Union will return to Snapchat.
“There is no set time that we will start using Snapchat again,” she said. “We’re exploring how we can use this platform to support our mission without feeling that the platform itself is tearing it down.”
Snapchat has said that its Bob Marley filter was intended to celebrate his music and was developed in cooperation with his family, and that the anime filter was simply meant to be fun.
Snapchat did not respond to a request for comment.
