Snapchat Remakes Itself, Splitting the Social From the Media
“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,” Evan Spiegel, Snap’s chief executive, said in a blog post about the redesign, which is to begin rolling out on Wednesday and continue through the end of the week.
Material shown on the app’s right side — what is now the media part — must meet content and community standards, Snap has decided, whether
that material is produced by a newspaper, a television studio, the company’s in-house news and stories teams or so-called influencers.
On Wednesday, its parent company, Snap, continued that unconventional approach, unveiling a redesign
that effectively separates social and media into two parts of the Snapchat app.
On the right side, there will be content from publishers, amateur creators, celebrities and stories
that Snap curates from user-generated videos and photos.
But the redesign otherwise moves Snapchat even further away from a traditional social media model.