Snap to stop promoting Trump's content in a move that adds pressure to Facebook

Citing a commitment not to “amplify voices who incite racial violence and injustice”, Snap said on Wednesday that it will no longer promote Donald Trump’s posts to users who do not already follow him, increasing pressure on Facebook over its stance on the president’s violent rhetoric.

“We are not currently promoting the president’s content on Snapchat’s Discover platform,” a spokesperson for Snap said in a statement, referring to a section of the social media app where users can see content from news outlets, professional publishers and public figures.

“We will not amplify voices who incite racial violence and injustice by giving them free promotion on Discover. Racial violence and injustice have no place in our society and we stand together with all who seek peace, love, equality, and justice in America.”

Related: Mark Zuckerberg criticised by civil rights leaders over Donald Trump Facebook post

Trump’s account will be allowed to remain on the platform, and users who choose to follow it will still see its posts. Trump tripled his following on the youth-focused platform to 1.5 million followers over the past eight months amid a push to reach young voters, Bloomberg reported last month.

Snap joined Twitter in taking previously unimaginable action to limit the reach of the president’s social media posts out of concern that his racist rhetoric will incite violence. The move is less of a stretch for Snap than it was for the company that once boasted of being “the free speech wing of the free speech party”; Snapchat was launched as a more private and ephemeral alternative to platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, and has never made claims to being an open forum for political debate.

The company said it made the decision over the weekend, and emphasized that no account has a right to free promotion on the Discover channel. Snap also published a lengthy email that its chief executive, Evan Spiegel, sent to staff on Sunday in response to the alleged police murder of George Floyd and the protests that have erupted around the country.

After discussing his own experience learning about racism and injustice, Spiegel telegraphed the action against Trump’s account, writing: “We may continue to allow divisive people to maintain an account on Snapchat, as long as the content that is published on Snapchat is consistent with our community guidelines, but we will not promote that account or content in any way … We will make it clear with our actions that there is no grey area when it comes to racism, violence, and injustice – and we will not promote it, nor those who support it, on our platform.”

Snap’s decision will likely increase pressure on the Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, who has come under intense criticism from civil rights leaders and Facebook employees over his decision to allow Trump’s threat that “when the looting starts the shooting starts” remain on the platform. Facebook employees have continued to speak out publicly against their boss on Twitter in the wake of an all-staff meeting Tuesday where the billionaire CEO defended his reasoning.

“Honestly why is this guy in charge,” one Facebook employee, product designer Nick Inzucchi, wrote on Twitter in response to an article about Zuckerberg. “Tech CEOs should not be making one-off content policy decisions, least of all for those who might regulate them … Mark is just not doing a very good job. He needs to sit down, be humble, and empower someone who gets it.”