Critics of the filter included Katie Zhu, a product manager at Medium, who described it as "a blatantly racist yellowface filter … a derogatory and offensive caricuture of Asians" in a explaining why she was deleting the app.
Snapchat claimed it was meant as a homage to anime characters, but Zhu disagreed and accused the company of being a "prime example of what happens when you don’t have enough people of colour building a product".
It is the second time the company has been accused of racism this year. In April it released a Bob Marley filter, with the approval of his estate, that was described as "".
Snapchat could not be immediately reached for comment.
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