Unless you have been living under the proverbial rock, in the last few days, you have to have heard about the Snapchat CEO’s comment on the Indian market and the ensuing fiasco that followed. There has not been a bigger faux pas in the Tech industry in recent times, unless you have publicly claimed allegiance to Microsoft’s Zune media player over the Apple iPod. Fear not, let’s make a quick go through of the incident involving the Snapchat CEO’s supposed alleged on the Indian market that broke social media.
First let us peal the unfortunate onion an incident down to its basics. The comments the CEO of Snapchat allegedly made, are not quotes documented in any recent public speech. The comments Evan Spiegel, the CEO of Snapchat has been accused of allegedly making are from 2015; and the statement in question “poor countries like India and Spain”, is one which he has been accused of making in a lawsuit to Snapchat by the former employee, Anthony Publiano. However, Publiano’s main objective behind the lawsuit is the fact that he blames the CEO Spiegel and co-founder Bobby Murphy of fabricating numbers and misleading advertisers. If the fallout from the supposed comment made by Spiegel is to be checked, majority of the feedback speaks nothing of Publiano or states the fact whether this has been verified by a court of law.
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Sadly, but somewhat predictably, the netizens of India did not take kindly to hearing anything negative about the Motherland. The number of Netizens who showed outrage on social media, in public and lest we forget, in the feedback section of Snapchat in the Google Play Store, was staggering. People were and still are incensed that a fast-developing nation such as India is still being pigeonholed. Personal attacks were also made on Spiegel in social media and talks of boycotting the application was rampant. For some comment which was made in 2015, and was part of a bigger context, it did not take too long for the spotlight to digress to something more politically questionable and in its usual way manifested into an ugly public spectacle soon enough.
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The incident does not spell a good financial quarter for Snapchat as the application also lost out when its ‘Stories’ feature inspired more popular counterparts in rivals Facebook Messenger and Instagram. The company has seen a major dip in the price of shares since the accusation was made public. PR teams on behalf of the app's board are of course denying Spiegel making any such racy remark about the Indian economy. In related news, Snapdeal also did not escape the brunt of the users in the Indian sub-continent and its non-resident patriots and has succumbed a great deal of its user-base. As soon as the news hit the airwaves, without pausing to fact-check, hordes of users with a skewed sense of nationalism, chose to undermine the wrong app and even write scathing remarks on the apps Play Store feedback section. It seems to have comically gone disastrous for Snapdeal to share half of its moniker with Snapchat. In the heels of a massive early-February layoff, Snapdeal are clearly not entering a sunny first quarter of the financial year.
It saddens this author deeply to admit about how the scenario has changed for the Indian community with the advent of social media. It comes as no surprise that everyone has a sense of entitlement to something they invest their time and money in. However, to make blatant use of free speech, and an accessible platform to put it up for others to see, has only made things more complicated. People have garnered a false sense of judgment where they jump to conclusions without checking facts. The phrase “trigger word” has lost its meaning given how everyone gets triggered at everything. Thousands took to social media to admonish “Snapdeal” because “their CEO called India poor”. Not only was this completely baseless and regressive, some got real personal in their comments.
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The same incident befell Snapdeal, unfortunately when their brand ambassador Aamir Khan was defamed for speaking out against moral policing of free speech, from a religious context. Thankfully, there were those who were kind enough to go the extra mile and send positive reviews to balance out the blow to Snapdeal! The reason why this is a matter of such serious concern, because people are going to extraordinary lengths to act out on a false sense of patriotic insecurity: Someone forged a post stating Mukesh Ambani had challenged Snapchat on the subject of economic power.
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Truth be told, the age-old formulas which predicted markets and served as a secret mantra to stock market analysts and pundits, does not hold good anymore. The public is fickle and only needs but a small nudge to lose their composure and allow their vitriol to take course. The meathook reality is that the number of people who lost their cool at the alleged remarks about India being poor, which have not been proven in any court yet, are not the ones who have actually taken a stand to help the administration eradicate property. The need for a rational society that does not stoop to mud-hurling at the drop of a hat, is imperative.
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