Rihanna slammed Snapchat for running that awful ad making light of domestic violence
Last week, a Snapchat ad went viral because it made light of domestic violence and mocked Rihanna’s tragic history of abuse at the hands of her ex-boyfriend Chris Brown. The ad was for a third-party game called “Would You Rather?” and asked the game-player to either “Slap Rihanna” or “Punch Chris Brown.” The internet cried out in response to the horrific advertisement and Snapchat apologized, but their thin response wasn’t enough for Rihanna, who slammed the social media app with a powerful statement.
“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!” Rihanna shared in an Instagram Story on March 15th. “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! Shame on you. Throw the whole app-oligy away," she continued.
Is it just me, or is this ad that popped up on my Snapchat extremely tone deaf? Like what were they thinking with this? pic.twitter.com/7kP9RHcgNG
— Royce Carter Mann (@royceforatlanta) March 12, 2018
The “app-oligy” she refers to is Snapchat’s statement that read (via BBC Newsbeat): “The advert was reviewed and approved in error, as it violates our advertising guidelines. We immediately removed the ad last weekend, once we became aware. We are sorry that this happened.”
Snapchat pulled the ad after the controversy, but the question of how it was approved in the first place still lingers, especially when Snapchat reportedly has a thorough review process in place for all its advertisers. Hopefully, with powerful voices like Rihanna’s, these corporations will finally start listening, and tone-deaf blunders like this one will become less common.
