The company that owns Snapchat, Snap Inc. has denied that their CEO Evan Spiegel said some time back that the app was restricted to rich people only and that the company didn’t want to expand Snapchat into other poor countries like Spain and India. The quote coming from a court complaint by Anthony Pompliano has caused a stir online in the last few days. However, Snap Inc. has been quick to dismiss the claims, labeling them as ridiculous. Anthony Pompliano worked for Snapchat as growth lead in 2015, albeit it was just for a few weeks.
According to Pompliano, there was an exchange he had with Spiegel back in 2015 about the company’s plan to expand its reach globally. It is during this exchange that Pompliano claims Spiegel made this shocking statement. Snapchat has felt the wrath of the public after this quote was made public. In fact, Snapchat’s ratings have plummeted in recent days. Many users seem to have voiced their disapproval to the quote and have rated the app a mere one star on Google and Apple’s app stores.
And that is not all. Some users have also taken to Twitter and other social media sites to slam Snapchat saying that the quote released last week was an insult to the people of India and Spain who have been using the app for years. Snap Inc. is, however, stepping up in trying to prevent further escalation of these revelations. A representative from Snap Inc. told a variety of Indian news outlets that the thought that Snapchat was only for the rich was “simply ridiculous.” The rep continued to say that the app was open to all people regardless of where they are in the world.
And to save face, Snap Inc. also slammed Anthony Pompliano for the quotes. The representative said that the quotes were simply written by a disgraced and disgruntled employee who had already fallen out with the company. Snap Inc. said that it was really grateful for the massive number of users in India. The company added that at no point has it ever taken for granted people around the world who use the app regardless of their socio-economic status. Despite this damage control initiative, there is no doubt that the crisis is far from over.
There is no telling what else will come out of the un-redacted complaint filed by Pompliano. It seems though that Snap Inc. would want to get ahead of any story before it comes out. Snapchat has always kept a low profile as far as controversy goes. This is one of the major PR nightmares the company has had to deal with in recent days. Whether such incidents will happen in the future remains to be seen but nonetheless, in the coming few weeks, Snap Inc. is expected to put more efforts on damage control until the story dies out. There was not a comment from CEO Evan Spiegel on this issue though.
