In a bid to take on biggies like Instagram and Facebook, social-media sharing app Snapchat is looking make a few changes to its app and is reportedly working on features to make users’ public posts longer lasting or even permanent, according to a Reuters report.
The report also states that the company is also looking for an option to reveal the identities of Snapchat users who make public posts. This is something similar to what we see on Instagram.
These changes could bring out a barrage of criticism as many Snapchat users enjoy the privacy on this platform ever since the app was launched in 2011. Social media biggies like Facebook have received a lot of flak due to its carelessness in handling user data, which is why Snap remains one of the few apps that keeps user data private.
Snap is looking to work on separate sections on its app called “Our Story” which will showcase some of the “permanent snaps” from users.
The tentative move could have been triggered due to dropping revenues and departing company executives in the last couple of years.
The company is carefully analysing the privacy, technical and legal caveats of revealing user identities on public posts.
The report also mentions that, only Snapchat photo and video content shared to “Our Story”, which users put out to share publicly and not just with friends, would be affected and users would still have the option of deleting those stories.
The changes to the platform would also come in response to feedback from Snap’s four partnerships with news discovery platforms that aid media companies to detect, analyse and republish public breaking news content on Snapchat. Initially, public stories used to disappear after 30 days, but now remain available to view for 20 days.
Some of the company’s partners have said that the vanishing and anonymous nature of public stories make it difficult for them to work with and many news organisations are not able to embed Snapchat stories into articles because the content eventually disappears.
Then there are others who will not use them because they are unable to verify anonymous users’ Snapchat videos.
—With inputs from Reuters
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)