Take as many pup-filtered selfies as you can while you can! On March 24, Snapchat announced that it would longer have filters as a feature on the app due to a government order by President Trump. This order came after a heated snap streak between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. Trump claims that he was being harassed by Biden through the use of filters on the app. Some of the snaps included the use of the puppy, bunny, baby, sunglasses, and the “I heart you” filters. Biden would caption the pictures with sayings such as “Trump is a baby,” “Trump to Russia- I heart you,” “You will never be the top dog,” “I am cooler than you,” and “I’ve never seen an orange bunny before.” Trump was simply tired of being harassed by Biden and could never think of a good enough comeback. The Snapchat filters also never detected his face due to the fact it probably thought he was a Cheeto. Also, his tiny hands did not have enough strength to hold down the button and hold up phone at the same time. Since Snapchat did not operate the way Trump wanted it to, he banned the filters on Snapchat and contacted them about blocking Biden as a user. The ban of filters will be in order as of April 2, 2017.
A Snapchat representative spoke to the press about how this will affect business. He believes that Snapchat will have fewer users because filters were one of their most liked and noted features of the app. The representative also said there was nothing they could do about Biden’s use of the app, but recommends that Trump just delete the app as well as his term of presidency. Due to the ban, Snapchat plans on creating a new app called Sniptalk, which will include even more filters. The representative said he hopes the app will be in the app store by summer of 2017.
How will the ban of filters impact our very own SLU campus? One St. Lawrence student said he is upset to see the filters go because they made his weekends out look even more “LIT” than they actually were. Another student is worried that her reputation as a pretty puppy will be ruined and everyone will know what she actually looks like. The campus cannot simply go back to using Snapchat without filters. So, until the launch of the new app in the summer of 2017, when you are out on your yacht with all your country club friends, stockpile those snaps and save them to your camera roll, because we would not want anyone to think that you are not actually a puppy or that mixer you went to on Saturday was not actually LIT.