Snapchat investigating itself after ex-employees speak out against 'racist' work culture, reports claim

Employees describe times when Black faces were replaced with white ones because stories were 'black-heavy' and 'they all look the same'

Snapchat logo displayed on a tablet ((AFP))

Snap, the company behind photo sharing app SnapChat, has launched an investigation into allegations of racism and sexism against itself.

According to anonymous sources who have spoken to Business Insider, the law firm Williams Kastner have contacted current and former staff following a report from Mashable where ex-employees recounted stories of racial divisions.

“It was constantly a battle of basically arguing with people about their whitewashed views of what good content was,” a former Snap employee said. “Some days we felt it was our job to be fighting for these voices, and other days it was too exhausting to even put up that fight.”

An employee was reportedly met with resistance from their manager for wanting to use a photo of a Black dance duo as the lead image for a story about dancing. That manager said that they wanted to use a “friendlier face”.

Historically Black people have been stereotyped as more violent and aggressive than people of other races.

“[The manager] didn't know who they were, and made it a really big issue as to, 'Why are we picking these people' to be the image of the story,” the ex-employee said. “At the time, they had millions of followers, as they do now. But she took that image as not being a friendly face: two young black men in masks.”

That same manager, while Snapchat was creating content for New York’s Fashion Week in 2017, said that there were “too many Black people in [the] story” and that Snapchat’s audience would feel like “we didn’t make this for them", reports claimed.

Former employee Diana Baik also posted on Twitter about her experiences with Snap. Baik said that a manager asked her to replace snaps of Black people with people of other races.

“We really appreciate Diana speaking up about her experience at Snap,“ the company said at the time.

”What Diana describes doesn’t reflect our values or aspirations as a team to provide content that reflects the diversity of the Snapchat community. We are investigating these allegations and will take the necessary actions to make things right.“

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel has also reportedly said it would not release a diversity report – something that many other technology companies have done. Mr Spiegel has argued that doing so actually normalises rather than counteracts discrimination in the industry.

Spiegel said: "I've always been concerned that releasing that data publicly only reinforces the perception that tech is not a place for underrepresented groups" and that it was making "our own new version of a diversity report".

In a statement, Snap said that it was “fully committed to publicly releasing our diversity numbers, along with our plans for meaningful change.”

Snapchat has had a number of issues with racism over the years. This includes a ‘yellowface’ filter which distorted people’s facial features so their eyelashes looked wider and their teeth looked larger – a stereotype of East Asian people.

Recently, the company had to apologise for a Juneteenth filter that encouraged users to smile to break chains set against a Pan-African flag. The filter was criticised as “tone-deaf” and indicative of ”how [Snapchat’s] team lacks the diversity required to curb this implicit bias.“

Snapchat said the filter had not gone through the company’s review process, for reasons that remain unclear until its investigation is completed.

"We are investigating why this mistake occurred so that we can avoid it in the future," Snap said.