A petition urging Snapchat to undo a redesign to the app has been signed by more than a million people.

The photo and video-sharing app has updated to separate content and interactions with friends from public and branded content from news services and other businesses.

Snapchat said the redesign aimed to separate “social” from “media” on the platform.

However, the changes have been met with thousands of complaints, with many saying the app is now too difficult to use.

(Snapchat)
(Snapchat)

The petition, posted to Change.org, describes an “annoyance” among users over the update, and claims many are trying to revert to older versions of the app.

“There is a general level of annoyance among users and many have decided to use a VPN app, or are using other risky apps or steps, to go back to the old Snapchat as that’s how annoying this new update has become,” it says.

“Many ‘new features’ are useless or defeat the original purposes Snapchat has had for the past years.

“This petition aims to help convince Snap Inc to change the app back to the basics, before the new 2018 update.”

The update now sees users swipe left to see content and interactions with friends, and swipe right to see news and other public content.

Snapchat founder and chief executive Evan Spiegel said during Snapchat’s recent financial results that the firm understood the design change may take time to be accepted.

“While we are still very early in the rollout, we are optimistic about the potential to unlock additional growth with the redesign of our application,” he said.

“As expected, it will take time for our community to get used to the changes, but overall, we are pleased with the initial results.”