Social Media

Snapchat users irked over new lens charges

Snapchat app on a mobile phone
Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Snapchat users took to Twitter on Friday after the platform began charging users for select filters on its mobile app.

The social network, which launched in 2011, is a video and photo sharing app in which content only lasts for a brief amount of time before disappearing. These "snaps" can be decorated with doodles or by adding a lens.

Lenses allow users to add stationary and animated affects to their photographs and videos. There are seven lenses for users to choose from and each day a new one is added and the oldest disappears.

That is, until now.

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Snapchat now offers 30 lenses in addition to the free rotating seven, but there is a catch. They cost 99 cents.

The lenses that the users of the social media platform purchase will remain in their queue and will not disappear.

According to the company, more than 10 million snaps are decorated with lenses each day. However, some users are not happy about Snapchat's decision to charge for these decorative elements.

Snapchat declined to comment.