Facebook was recently accused by supermodel Miranda Kerr of stealing ideas from Snapchat. Kerr, who is also the fiancée of Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel, expressed her derision toward the social networking giant in an interview with Richard Godwin of The Times of London.
Facebook called a big copycat
Kerr said, “I cannot STAND Facebook.”
However, it is surprising to see that her official Facebook Page has about 8.26 million likes.
Further, raising a question on Facebook’s ability to innovate, Kerr said, “Do they have to steal all of my partner’s ideas? I’m so appalled by that… When you directly copy someone, that’s not innovation.”
It does appear that she is especially upset with Instagram launching its own Snapchat-like ideas. Instagram is a photo-sharing app owned by Facebook. Kerr’s official Instagram page has about 10.6 million followers. Kerr, according to Godwin, even panicked and asked her publicist if her comments were appropriate.
Even so, she continued, “It’s a disgrace, how do they sleep at night?”
Kerr is not the first person to have wondered about Facebook’s penchant for being inspired by the work of others. The social media giant does appear keen to launch Snapchat-like features.
Around the release of the copycat product Instagram Stories in August, TechCrunch’s Josh Constine asked Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom, “Let’s talk about the big thing. Snapchat pioneered a lot of this format. Whole parts of the concept, the implementation, down to the details.”
Interrupting the question, Systrom said “totally,” adding that Snapchat deserves all the credit.
Biggest threat to Snapchat
All of us know that Facebook tried to buy Snapchat in 2013, but Spiegel turned the lucrative offer. Last summer, the social networking giant copied Snapchat’s “Story” format in Instagram and also made the same feature available in Messenger. It is even testing the Stories feature for its main app.
Snapchat admits that Facebook is a vital threat. In its recent public offering paperwork with the SEC, the company listed Facebook as one of the main risk factors to its business. In the filing, the company said its losses have amplified each year and warned that it “may never achieve or maintain profitability.”
After Instagram Stories was released last year, Snapchat, which boasts 158 million daily users, witnessed a sharp drop in user growth. As of now, there has been no response from Facebook to Kerr’s accusations.
