Snapchat Takes A Swing At Facebook With Russian Bot filter

Snapchat has decided to throw some serious shade at its rival Facebook this April Fools’ Day. It has capitalized on all of the negative press coverage related to Facebook over the past couple of weeks and the wider conversation regarding Russia’s alleged misinformation campaign on Facebook during the presidential election. It has introduced a filter which recreates Russian bots liking your posts.

There have been countless reports detailing how the Russians used tens of thousands of bots on Facebook to influence the 2016 presidential election. The massive misinformation campaign is believed to have been backed by the country’s government.

Facebook has promised to do more to ensure that its platform can’t be misused by state and non-state actors to do something like this in the future. Nevertheless, this has been a stain on the social media giant’s reputation and it can’t shake that off easily.

So no wonder Snapchat is having some fun at its rival’s expense. The filter it has launched today basically recreates Russian bots liking your posts. It puts a Facebook UI around your photo with Cyrillic script-like text. The likes section includes “your mum” and “a bot.”

The “your mum” joke was used by Snapchat last year as well in its Instagram-style filter which was meant to highlight Facebook’s older user base. The Russian bot filter is going to be available for one day only as a celebration, for lack of a better word, on April Fools’ Day.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: Facebook, Snapchat