San Francisco (AFP)

Snapchat, popular social network of young people of generation Z, joined Twitter Wednesday to attenuate the echo of the messages of Donald Trump, who "incite to racial violence" in a country where hundreds of thousands of people have been marching for 10 days against violence against the black minority.

Snapchat has announced that it will no longer promote US President messages, even if they remain visible to subscribers to its account and appear when a user does a specific search.

"We are not going to amplify voices that incite racial violence and injustice by promoting them for free on Discover", the network's news feed where users can find new products, recommendations and publications. media or well-known personalities, the company said.

Snapchat joins Twitter, which provoked the ire of the President of the United States last week, by putting warnings on the messages it sends to its more than 81 million subscribers. One concerned electoral fraud, which Twitter considered to be misinformation, and the other could suggest that the president was calling for the looting of looters.

The two networks, however, chose not to ban Donald Trump entirely.

The latter took very badly the initiatives of Twitter, taking advantage of his audience on the network to denounce what he perceives as censorship and a confirmation of a bias from the left and anti-Republican party.

The presidential campaign for his re-election also quickly published a press release accusing Snapchat of wanting to "rig" the November 3 poll.

- "Peace, love, equality and justice" -

"Snapchat extremist CEO Evan Spiegel prefers to promote videos of far-left riots and encourage users to destroy America rather than sharing the positive message of unity, justice, law and order of the president, "accuses the campaign.

"Racial violence and injustice have no place in society and we stand in solidarity with all those who seek peace, love, equality and justice in America," said Snapchat in an email to l 'AFP.

Over the weekend, Spiegel had sent a long letter to employees of Snap, the network's parent company, to condemn what he saw as the perpetuation of racial injustice in America.

"Every minute we are silent in the face of evil and injustice, we act on behalf of those who do evil," he wrote.

This announcement - like that of Twitter - comes as hundreds of thousands of people have been demonstrating for more than a week across the country - demonstrations sometimes interspersed with violence and looting - against police violence against visible minorities and in particular to the black population.

The death of George Floyd, asphyxiated by a police officer while he was handcuffed and offering no resistance, at the end of May was the trigger for these demonstrations in a country already hit by a pandemic which has killed over 100,000 people. and put tens of millions of people out of work.

Unlike Twitter or now Snapchat, Facebook, the world's leading social network, has chosen not to flag or censor the President's messages in any way.

A decision assumed by Mark Zuckerberg, the director and founder of Facebook, but criticized very publicly by some of his employees, some having preferred to resign than to continue working for the company.

Publicly, the young billionaire camps on positions, which had long exposed last year during an ultra-mediatized speech in front of the university of Georgetown, and which can be summarized by two conclusions: the messages of President, in the name of freedom of expression and the public interest in obtaining information, and it is not up to a private company to determine who has the right to speak or not.

However, Facebook says that even political speeches can be censored if they praise violence or hatred, for example.

- Counter attack -

Stung by Twitter, Donald Trump quickly signed a decree attacking Section 230 of the "Communications Decency Act".

The cornerstone of the American internet, it offers Facebook, Twitter or YouTube (Google) immunity from any legal action related to content published by third parties and gives them the freedom to intervene on platforms as they wish.

The decree seeks to modify the scope of this 1996 law and states that immunity cannot extend to those who practice "censorship from certain points of view".

© 2020 AFP