Late last month a single tweet from Kylie Jenner slamming Snapchat cost the company $AU1.7 billion; and now criticism from Rihanna has caused the photo sharing app’s value to fall even further.
Earlier this week Rihanna denounced Snapchat over a tone-deaf ad for the mobile game ‘Would You Rather’ in which users were asked whether they’d rather ‘slap Rihanna’ or ‘punch Chris Brown’.
Taking to Instagram, the 30-year-old wrote: “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!!!… Throw the whole app-oligy away.”
Brown plead guilty to assaulting then-girlfriend Rihanna in 2009.
Following the widely criticised debacle and Rihanna’s public disgust at the app, many noticed that the Snapchat’s stock plummeted nearly a billion US dollars following incident.
Snapchat has since apologised publicly to the singer, saying in a statement: "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."
Snapchat has an automated ad-buying platform. But company policy states, "All ads are subject to our review and approval." It also says it prohibits "Shocking, sensational, or disrespectful content."
The stuff-up comes just days after Snapchat pulled Giphy stickers due to an extremely racist image being searchable on the platform.
