Photo sharing app Snapchat’s CEO Evan Spiegel publicly addressed Facebook’s long-standing copycatting of the app’s feature by saying that Facebook should draw its data protection policies nearer to our approach. “We would really appreciate it if they copied our data protection practices also,” Spiegel said at the Code Conference in Southern California.
Facebook has copied key Snapchat features like disappearing 24-Hour Stories format and augmented reality lenses. Kara Swisher, American technology business journalist and co-founder of Recode, asked Spiegel how he felt about Facebook’s decision of copycatting to which Spiegel replied that his wife, Miranda Kerr, cared more about it than he did. But then Spiegel stirred up the conversation by bringing data privacy and referring to Facebook’s involvement over the Cambridge Analytica scandal -- drawing a huge laugh from the crowd.
While Snap also collects data on users like Facebook does, but has never offered a full-featured API that allows users to give away their friends’ information. Though Snap allows advertisers to target ads based on demographic criteria that the company gathers.
Spiegel further said that he looked at Facebook’s copying as a designer. “If you design something that is so simple and so elegant, that the only thing other people can do is copy it exactly … that as a designer is really is the most fantastic thing in the world,” added Spiegel.
However ethically dubious, Facebook’s attempt in replicating Snapchat’s feature have been largely effective, well they can be because it is the largest social network. Even adding Stories feature in Instagram has helped the app drive a new wave of growth, and WhatsApp’s Stories are now the most widely feature in the messaging world.
