SAN FRANCISCO: Vanishing message app Snapchat made a photo lens quickly disappear after an online uproar branding it an offensive stereotype of Asians worthy of the label “Yellow Face.”
The lens overlaid faces in photos with cartoon visages featuring slanted eyes, wide cheeks and toothy grins.
Snapchat pulled the lens after its release on Tuesday ignited concerns it was insulting and racist.
Snapchat said the lens was meant as a playful take on anime characters and promised it would not return to circulation.
“Snapchat virtualized old-timey yellow face without thinking about how it effects E-Asians,” read a Twitter message fired off by the account of @brtnyle.
“It’s disappointing whether it was deliberate or not.”
Southern California-based Snapchat was hit with similar charges of being racially insensitive earlier this year after releasing a Bob Marley filter that people could use to add graphics of dreadlocks to photos.
The filter which Snapchat said it designed in the spirit of the late reggae star also modified facial features and darkened skin tone. Snapchat soared to popularity with messages that disappear shortly after being viewed and has been adding features to better compete with mainstream messaging or photo services such as those run by Facebook or Google.
The number of people using Snapchat in the United States will leap more than 27 percent this year to 58.6 million, meaning that nearly one in five people in the country will be using the service, according to an eMarketer forecast.
By the year 2020, the ranks of US Snapchat users were expected to swell to 85.5 million, according to the report.
Snapchat estimates it has more than 100 million users globally of the service for sending videos, images and text messages which vanish after being viewed. Some reports say it generates 10 billion video views per day.
Snapchat ‘Yellow Face’ lens slapped as racist
Snapchat ‘Yellow Face’ lens slapped as racist
Egypt reveals restored colossal statues of pharaoh in Luxor
- Amenhotep III, one of the most prominent pharaohs, ruled during the 500 years of the New Kingdom, which was the most prosperous time for ancient Egypt
LUXOR: Egypt on Sunday revealed the revamp of two colossal statues of a prominent pharaoh in the southern city of Luxor, the latest in the government’s archeological events that aim at drawing more tourists to the country.
The giant alabaster statues, known as the Colossi of Memnon, were reassembled in a renovation project that lasted about two decades. They represent Amenhotep III, who ruled ancient Egypt about 3,400 years ago.
“Today we are celebrating, actually, the finishing and the erecting of these two colossal statues,” Mohamed Ismail, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said ahead of the ceremony.
Ismail said the colossi are of great significance to Luxor, a city known for its ancient temples and other antiquities. They’re also an attempt to “revive how this funerary temple of King Amenhotep III looked like a long time ago,” Ismail said.
Amenhotep III, one of the most prominent pharaohs, ruled during the 500 years of the New Kingdom, which was the most prosperous time for ancient Egypt. The pharaoh, whose mummy is showcased at a Cairo museum, ruled between 1390–1353 BC, a peaceful period known for its prosperity and great construction, including his mortuary temple, where the Colossi of Memnon are located, and another temple, Soleb, in Nubia.
The colossi were toppled by a strong earthquake in about 1200 BC that also destroyed Amenhotep III’s funerary temple, said Ismail.
They were fragmented and partly quarried away, with their pedestals dispersed. Some of their blocks were reused in the Karnak temple, but archeologists brought them back to rebuild the colossi, according to the Antiquities Ministry.
In late 1990s, an Egyptian German mission, chaired by German Egyptologist Hourig Sourouzian, began working in the temple area, including the assembly and renovation of the colossi.
“This project has in mind … to save the last remains of a once-prestigious temple,” she said.
The statues show Amenhotep III seated with hands resting on his thighs, with their faces looking eastward toward the Nile and the rising sun. They wear the nemes headdress surmounted by the double crowns and the pleated royal kilt, which symbolizes the pharaoh’s rule.
Two other small statues on the pharaoh’s feet depict his wife, Tiye.
The colossi — 14.5 meters and 13.6 meters respectively — preside over the entrance of the king’s temple on the western bank of the Nile. The 35-hectare complex is believed to be the largest and richest temple in Egypt and is usually compared to the temple of Karnak, also in Luxor.
The colossi were hewn in Egyptian alabaster from the quarries of Hatnub, in Middle Egypt. They were fixed on large pedestals with inscriptions showing the name of the temple, as well as the quarry.
Unlike other monumental sculptures of ancient Egypt, the colossi were partly compiled with pieces sculpted separately, which were fixed into each statue’s main monolithic alabaster core, the ministry said.
Sunday’s unveiling in Luxor came just six weeks after the inauguration of the long-delayed Grand Egyptian Museum, the centerpiece of the government’s bid to boost the country’s tourism industry. The mega project is located near the famed Giza Pyramids and the Sphinx.
In recent years, the sector has started to recover after the coronavirus pandemic and amid Russia’s war on Ukraine — both countries are major sources of tourists visiting Egypt.
“This site is going to be a point of interest for years to come,” said Tourism and Antiquities Minister Sherif Fathy, who attended the unveiling ceremony. “There are always new things happening in Luxor.”
A record number of about 15.7 million tourists visited Egypt in 2024, contributing about 8 percent of the country’s GDP, according to official figures.
Fathy, the minister, has said about 18 million tourists are expected to visit the country this year, with authorities hoping for 30 million visitors annually by 2032.
