Snapchat CEO saying India 'too poor' is old-school racism in digital age
India may be used to tech czars regularly courting its 800 million and growing cellphone users, among them about 600 million happen to be smartphone users, but that doesn’t stop a privileged bigot from stepping on our digital toes.
While Indians are warming up to Snapchat’s weird flowery video messages – part fantasy, part technology-driven crazed interaction, it has come to light that the company’s young CEO, Evan Spiegel, had betrayed grave ignorance and racism with a passing comment on the country.
In a 2015 meeting, Spiegel had, while discussing the app’s user base and strategies for expansion, said that he wouldn’t be interested in India and Spain, because he thought the countries were “too poor” to afford Snapchat, which according to him is an app “for the rich”. This, despite an employee’s concern that Snapchat wasn’t doing enough to woo Indians, which has one of the largest user base of smartphones and was growing by leaps and bounds.
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| Snapchat is in a soup. |
According to the magazine Variety, Spiegel said: “This app is only for the rich people. I don’t want to expand into poor countries like India and Spain.”
According to this report: “An ex-employee of Snapchat – Anthony Pompliano – who is currently engaged in a lawsuit against SNAP after he accused the company of misleading investors by providing inflated statistics about user data, said that Spiegel stormed out of the meeting after making this comment.”
Gaiz.CEO of Snapchat: Rich. Mukesh Ambani: really really really rich. You/Me/India: Tweeting about two rich dudes.
— Vir Das (@thevirdas) April 16, 2017
Now that’s both misplaced hubris and some rotten ignorance.
At a time when Facebook honcho Mark Zuckerberg went out of his way to push “free internet” via Facebook to India’s 1.3 billion people, and Bill Gates makes it very clear that Microsoft is part of Narendra Modi’s Digital India project, how is it that Spiegel talks like a disconnected frat-boy that global tech can ill-afford to entertain.
#Snapchat's target revenue in 2016: $300MWorth of crackers India burnt on Diwali in 2016: $620Mstill india is poor#boycottsnapchat pic.twitter.com/DkuBEqB2gm
— ♚ FARHAN ♚ (@imfarhan_chisty) April 16, 2017
There is a two-pronged misunderstanding in Spiegel’s unbelievably daft comment. Firstly, smartphone penetration and being a rich country by conservative estimates are not mutually exclusive. Hence, even a country that has low per capita income but a high GDP (seventh in the world), such as India, is a tech powerhouse and literally the world’s IT department.
Secondly, poverty, in the way Spiegel understands it, is obsolete. Nowadays, a smartphone isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity. In fact, internet connectivity is now a human right. Even though traditional indicators such as health, education, nutrition are not top-notch in a developing country such as India, we happen to be one of the biggest markets of smartphones worldwide, because we have a huge population of young, connected individuals – exactly the demographic that Snapchat wishes to elicit into downloading its quirky app.
No wonder Snapchat is in a soup now because Spiegel has managed to miff one of most overwrought and easy-to-outrage people in the world – us Indians, but this time justifiably so.
Snapchat has about four million users in India, and clearly is much behind say WhatsApp, which has 200 million and growing. Snapchat is way behind Twitter, Facebook and other apps that are popular among Indians, because of their appeal in marked ways to woo the volatile Indian crowd. Can Spiegel really afford to be rude to a people who alone can downgrade the app by messing with ratings or simply uninstalling it en masse?
No, actually. And that’s precisely what happened. As #BoycottSnapchat trended on Twitter, the app’s rating came crashing to one star and thousands have already uninstalled it from their phones.
Feeling bored this Sunday? Go ahead and read reviews of @Snapchat in Google Play Store.#boycottsnapchat@evanspiegel pic.twitter.com/u1LKYMbNFc
— Republic Of India (@RepubIicofIndia) April 16, 2017
Twitter reactions to this digital humiliation are noteworthy:
While we Indians are only outraging online over Snapchat CEO's comments, Spain has lost it completely pic.twitter.com/A1uYKFUlxa
— Anurag Verma (@kitAnurag) April 16, 2017
#Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel calls India pooe. Teach him a lesson:- 1) Uninstall2) Rate it 1star on Google play store3) RT and spread it...
— Sanket Dhongade (@shanku98) April 16, 2017
Dear CEO of @Snapchat Kejriwal sir spent 1 crore rupees for chai and samosa and you think that india is poor country ????????#boycottsnapchat
— હરામી ™ (@HaraME_Tweets) April 16, 2017
Dear Snapchat CEO, You jst triggrd the country wid 1.25 billion population! Enjoy the hatrd! :) With loveWe Indians.???????? #boycottsnapchat
— Abdul Wahid Khan (@iamwahid1998) April 16, 2017
Snapchat CEO is just jealous of India coz they don't have Taj Mahal that doesn't need any filters????
— Qween of Snapchat (@QweenOfHells) April 16, 2017
Snapchat CEO says 'we don't want expansion in poor country like India...,' Inko nahi Pata ki James Bond se ghutka bikwate hai hum????????
— ruchika chaubey (@ruchika_2710) April 16, 2017
Exactly as PM Narendra Modi insists on Indians going cashless and embracing the financial technologies that are both cutting-edge and experimental, in fact way ahead of some of the ways money circulates around the world, Spiegel has been caught turning away from a hen that lays the proverbial golden egg of digital returns.