Snapchat removes its “SPEED” filter due to some law issues

Snapchat is eliminating its controversial “speed filter” from Snapchat this week, NPR reports.

The in-app effect reveals your current speed in miles or kilometers per hour, and many analysts had maintained the feature-backed reckless driving, with remarkable telling that Snap should be kept responsible when the speed filter was attached to deadly car crashes.

There have been various lawsuits over the years combining Snapchat to car crashes. One involving a 2015 car accident in Georgia appeared just several years after the first updated Snapchat to carry the filter.

Since then, the organization has reduced the filter to a sticker, hiding it in a separate menu and delivering it a bit more challenging to use.

Recently, the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court ruled that Snap could claim the speed filter/sticker’s engagement in car accidents. The court determined that Snap isn’t preserved here by Section 230, a division of the Communications Decency Act that protects companies from being claimed over the content users’ publish on a platform.

What is Section 230

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, legislated in 1996, states an “interactive computer service” can’t be handled as the publisher or speaker of third-party content. This preserves websites from lawsuits if a user posts something prohibited, although there are differences for copyright violations, sex work-related material, and breaches of federal criminal law.

The case Lemmon v. Snap included another crash in Georgia that occurred in the death of three men in 2017. The Ninth Circuit court stated that the family members of the men could sue Snap after initially dismissing the incident in 2020.

Snap validated that the sticker is remaining separated and submitted the following statement to The Verge:

Nothing is more prominent than the protection of our Snapchat community, and we had earlier impaired the filter at driving speeds. Snapchatters almost use the sticker, and in light of that, we are removing it altogether.