In the wake of fatal crashes, Snapchat has announced to drop a controversial ‘speed filter’ on Thursday. This filter allows the user to share how fast they were moving.
The feature captures the user’s speed in an image that they could then fire off to friends, promoting concerns and lawsuits over the potential for dangerously distracted drivers. Following Snapchat's link to the deadly car crashes, the company has also faced lawsuits over the filter.
“Nothing is more important than the safety of our Snapchat community and we had previously disabled the filter at driving speed,” said a spokesperson of Snapchat. “today the sticker is barely used by Snachatters and in the light of that, we are removing it altogether,” the spokesperson added.
The critics had lashed out at the feature saying that it tempts the Snapchat users to drive recklessly fast just to show off. In May, Snapchat had announced that it has 500 million monthly active users with a surging number in many parts of the world.
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Crashes related to ‘Speed Filter’
The feature was introduced in 2013, after which several accidents were recorded and the people killed were using the speed filter of Snapchat.
In 2015, a driver in Georgia had met an accident involving the Snapchat feature. His brain was permanently damaged in the accident. Later, in the same year, the feature was involved in the death of three young women in a Philadelphia car accident.
In 2016, five people in Florida had lost their lives in a high-speed collision. This accident also involved the ‘speed filter’ and in another accident in 2017, three young men in Wisconsin clocked a speed of 123 miles per hour on the feature and ended up crashing and losing lives.