A Snapchat Update Petition Is Pleading with Snap to Change It Back
It's gone viral, but will it work?
If you thought the fury over Snapchat’s update has died down, think again.
Snap Inc. recently rolled out a major redesign to its popular app, Snapchat, and its most dedicated users aren’t into it.
Power users aren’t fans of how the app is now featuring the news section mixed in with friends’ Stories. This is because scrolling through updates makes for an understandably tedious process, with Snappers attempting to find close friends’ Stories within the pool of updates.
In fact, the update is so loathed, there is even a Change.org petition to help “bring back the old Snap.”
The update, has been reportedly rolled out to select users in the UK, Australia, and Canada.
“There is a general level of annoyance among users and many have decided to use a VPN app to go back to the old Snapchat, as that’s how annoying this new update has become,” the petition’s author, Nic Rumsey, writes on the Change page. “Many ‘new features’ are useless or defeats the original purposes Snapchat has had for the past years. This petition aims to help convince Snap Inc. to change the app back to the basics, before this new 2018 update.”
Under the comments sections of the petition, where folks can explain the reason behind their signature, users really let Snap Inc. know how they feel.
Yianni Kaponias writes: “It’s just unnecessary, it’s so much harder to use.” The petition already has more than half a million signatures, making it over halfway to its million signature goal.
The update included a new “Friends” tab that displays a non-chronological feed, along with a new Discover section. The app now features users’ own Story under their profile page, whereas it used to appear on top of friends’ Stories.
Other changes include Group Chats getting their own page and optional Story. Meanwhile, the famous Snap Map has been moved, too, and now appears on the Discover page and in Search. Before the update, the map was also previously accessible from the camera screen.
Elsewhere, users voiced similar opinions of the major update, in which Snap is attempting to overhaul its growth strategy. According to the social app’s reviews on both the iOS App Store and the Google Play store, reviewers of the new update “hate” it.
It’s unclear yet whether Snap will address the Change.org petition, but given its tepid reaction to the initial negative reviews, it most likely won’t “undo” the update.
“Updates as big as this one can take a little getting used to, but we hope the community will enjoy it once they settle in,” a Snap spokesperson said during the update’s rollout.
The update is set to be available to all users within the next few months.
