Snapchat, the popular photo and video sharing app, was already having a bad week. Now it’s gotten even worse.
Instagram, one of the app’s main rivals, announced Thursday that its “Stories” feature, a clear knock-off of Snapchat’s feature of deleting content after 24 hours, already has more users than Snapchat does.
Now, Snapchat’s rating on Apple’s App Store stands at 1.5 stars as of Sunday afternoon, a drop from its previous status at four or more stars as recently as a month ago.
The reason is a viral international effort on social media in response to alleged comments made by Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, one of the youngest self-made billionaires in the world.
A former employee of Snap, Anthony Pompliano, filed a lawsuit against the company that was recently unsealed and publicly reported on after Snap dropped its efforts to stop the filings from being kept secret.
In that lawsuit, Pompliano, who only spent three weeks with Snap, says the he raised concerns in a meeting about the app’s growth outside the U.S., per Variety.
“This app is only for rich people,” Spiegel responded, according to Pompliano. “I don’t want to expand into poor countries like India and Spain.”
Spiegel’s alleged comments exploded on social media, especially in India, where #uninstallsnapchat and #boycottsnapchat trended for hours on Saturday and Sunday.