‘Slap Rihanna’ Snapchat accused of trivialising domestic violence
Rihanna has called out social media platform Snapchat after the company ran an ad featuring the star that was in decidedly bad taste.
The animation featured a picture of Rihanna and Chris Brown, and asked users to vote which one they would rather 'slap' or 'punch.'
The ads calls to memory the incident in 2009, when Rihanna pressed charges against Chris Brown for assault.
Rihanna responding to Snapchat's ad. I can't believe they did this. pic.twitter.com/TpHQIXTm4j
— Gennette Cordova (@GNCordova) March 15, 2018
Taking to Instagram stories, she said: 'Now Snapchat, I know you already know you ain’t my fav app out there!'
'But I’m just trying to figure out what the point was with this mess. I’d love to call it ignorance but I know you ain’t that dumb!'
You spent money to animate something that would intentionally bring shame to DV victims and made a joke of it!!!'
'This isn't about my personal feelings, cause I don't have much of them…but all the women, children and men that have been victims of DV in the past and especially the ones who haven't made it out yet…you let us down!'
The app responded to the criticism in a statement, according to The Verge: 'This advertisement is disgusting and never should have appeared on our service.'
'We are so sorry we made the terrible mistake of allowing it through our review process. We are investigating how that happened so that we can make sure it never happens again.'
Following the backlash, Snapchat stock fell by 5pc, in a similar manner as to when Kylie Jenner recently posted a negative tweet about the app.
