Snapchat shares tank after Rihanna blasts app for 'slap' ad

Posted on March 16, 2018

Rihanna’s criticism of Snapchat bosses for allowing an advert that mocked domestic abuse victims has wiped around $800 million off of the company’s market valuation.

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Snapchat users were outraged over the weekend after they were shown an advert for mobile phone game Would You Rather which asked if they would “rather slap Rihanna or punch Chris Brown”, a reference to the Umbrella singer’s 2009 assault at the hands of her then-boyfriend.

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Bosses quickly apologized, and the ad was subsequently pulled from the app, but Rihanna refused to accept their apology, posting a statement on rival app Instagram on Thursday.

“This isn’t about my personal feelings, cause I don’t have much of them,” she wrote. “But all the women, children and men that have been victims of DV (domestic violence) in the past and especially the ones who haven’t made it out yet… you let us down! Shame on you.”

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(Instagram)

According to The Wall Street Journal, her angry response, which prompted many of her fans to delete the app, sent shares plummeting and erased $800 million off Snapchat’s market value.

After Rihanna’s outburst, Snapchat executives issued a second apology aiming to stop any more damage to their reputation.

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“This advertisement is disgusting and never should have appeared on our service,” a company spokesperson told America’s ABC News. “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.”

The 30-year-old singer is the second celebrity to send Snaphcat shares tumbling in less than a month. In February, reality star Kylie Jenner told her Twitter followers she was no longer using the app, an admission that wiped $1.3 billion off the company’s market valuation.

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