The petition to undo latest Snapchat update hits a million signatures

The petition to undo latest Snapchat update hits 1,000,000. (© Robyn BECK / AFP)

Over a million people have signed an online petition calling upon Snap Inc. to get rid of “useless new features” implemented in their latest update to Snapchat.

After rolling out a new app update, Snap Inc. has been faced with a lot of resistance, which has now led to a petition on Change.org to bring back the older version of Snapchat.

The petition was created by Nic Rumsey and he believes “Many ‘new features' are useless or defeat the original purposes Snapchat has had for the past years.” And so far, over a million people signed in agreement.

One of the features he may be referring to is the separation between friends' and media ‘Snapchat Stories,' which are compilations of short videos that disappear after 24 hours. Before, when users would want to watch these ‘stories' they would have them all together on a content page, now ‘friends' are in one area and publishers/media in another, called ‘Discover.' Other reorganization has also taken place, which many users have found confusing, hence the petition.

Back in November 2017, CEO of Snapchat, Evan Spiegel, released a 60-second video to demonstrate the then ‘upcoming' changes, where he explained “While blurring the lines between professional content creators and your friends has been an interesting Internet experiment, it has also produced some strange side-effects (like fake news) and made us feel like we have to perform for our friends rather than just express ourselves.”

In the meanwhile, many users are taking matters into their own hands by searching for VPN apps or other steps to go back to the old Snapchat. Snap Inc. has yet to address some of the negative feedback.