The president's campaign team accused Snapchat of influencing the 2020 election after the popular social media app announced it would no longer promote Trump's public account on its Discover page on Wednesday. 

According to a company spokesperson, the platform has decided to suspend advertising the president's content that, they claimed, promoted racial violence and injustice. 

"Racial violence and injustice have no place in our society, and we stand together with all who seek peace, love, equality, and justice in America," the spokesperson said. 

Snapchat's CEO Evan Spiegel also released a memo to employees where he condemned racism and inequality. In the memo, he claimed the platform would not promote accounts that belong to groups or individuals who incite violence on or off Snapchat.

In response, Trump's 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, accused the platform of illegally using corporate funding to promote the opposition and suppress the United States president. 

Facebook's Stand

Snapchat's move comes after another social media giant, Facebook, refused to take action after Trump posted the phrase "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" which is an infamous phrase used by a white police chief during the civil rights era. The phrase was said to have contributed to intense race riots where, in 1980, a black man was beaten into a coma by a dozen white police officers. He later succumbed to his injuries. 

While Twitter tagged the controversial post with a warning label, Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerburg insisted the post did not violate his company's rules and refused to take it down. 

Facebook's employees hosted a virtual walkout by refusing to work. Hundreds of workers circulated petitions and threatened to resign; others publicly expressed their disappointment on other social media platforms. 

Section 230

Denouncing Twitter's face-check label, the president signed an executive order at the end of May that allowed federal regulators to crack down on tech companies. The law also takes away the legal protections that protect the companies from being held liable for what users post on their platforms. 

During the signing, Trump told reporters the order was written to defend free speech. He also claimed social media platforms had "unchecked powers" that allowed them to "edit and alter" communication between private or public citizens. 

"We cannot allow that to happen, especially when they go about doing what they're doing," Trump said. 

However, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, a co-author of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, said the executive order was illegal. He claims the law he helped create did not include political neutrality. 

Wyden claimed eroding Section 230 would lead to more malicious and dangerous online content.

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