Shares of Snap are tumbling today after reports that Snapchat suffered “an act of vandalism” temporarily relabeled New York City as “Jewtropolis” on several popular apps and services.
As The New York Times reports, users of a variety of popular apps and services, including Snapchat, awoke Thursday morning to find that New York City had been relabeled “Jewtropolis” on maps displayed in the apps. People on Twitter quickly posted screen shots of the maps, calling them racist and anti-Semitic.
Maps on Snapchat, Citi Bike, StreetEasy and even The New York Times all appeared to be affected.
All of those affected appeared to use embeddable maps from a third-party company called Mapbox. The company did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but in an interview with TechCrunch, Eric Gundersen, the chief executive, said the problems were “100 percent fixed and should have never happened.”
Shares are down almost 3%…
Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, said that the third-party data it uses for its maps tool, Snap Map, had been “subject to vandalism.”
“This defacement is deeply offensive and entirely contrary to our values, and we want to apologize to any members of our community who saw it,” a Snap spokeswoman said in an email.
Social media is aghast…
@Snapchat why is nyu labled “Jewtropolis”? Is it a joke because it’s not funny it’s anti-Semitic. pic.twitter.com/6EezekWKDV
— The Devon Girl (@kl_mika_) August 30, 2018
Idk, doesn’t “Jewtropolis” strike you as a little racist, @Snap ? pic.twitter.com/rWXZa56Nvg
— nathan etc (@itsnathannow) August 30, 2018
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