'I'd love to call it ignorance. but I know you ain't that dumb!'
Social media and celebrities go hand-in-hand in the millennial world we live in - and if you lose your A-list clientele, your app is as good as dead.
This is something Snapchat knows all too well.
It hasn't been a good month for the social media platform. First Kylie Jenner reportedly knocked £1 billion off Snapchat's stock market value after hinting that she's over it, and now the app has fallen out with Rihanna (and a lot of her fans) for making light of domestic violence.
Advertising one of its new games, Would You Rather?, over the weekend, the app caused extreme offence when enticing users in with the question, 'Would you rather slap Rihanna or punch Chris Brown?'
While this would be considered inappropriate in any circumstance - normalising violence and all - the reference to former couple Rihanna and Chris Brown is particularly controversial, given their past.
Rihanna was hospitalised in 2009 after Chris Brown (her partner at the time) violently assaulted and threatened to kill her - so it's hardly surprising that the public reacted strongly to Snapchat making light of it.
'Is it just me, or is this ad that popped up on my Snapchat extremely tone deaf?' posted one user, Royce Mann. 'Like what were they thinking with this?'
Snapchat has since taken the advert down, releasing the statement: 'The advert was reviewed and approved in error, as it violates our advertising guidelines.'
Rihanna however made it clear that she wasn't going to accept Snapchat's apology, taking to her Instagram stories to publicly call them out. 'I'd love to call it ignorance,' she stated. 'But I know you ain't that dumb!'
Snapchat responded to Rihanna's comments today, issuing a statement to The Verge and going on to explain that the Would You Rather game was now unaffiliated with Snapchat.
'This advertisement is disgusting and never should have appeared on our service,' the statement read. '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.'
