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Instagram/Snapchat; screenshots by Alfred Ng/CNET

Rihanna snapped back at Snapchat on Thursday morning, slamming the social media app for a controversial ad featuring the pop star and Chris Brown.

The "Wild Thoughts" singer took to Instagram Stories to respond to the Snapchat ad, which asked viewers if they would rather "Slap Rihanna" or "Punch Chris Brown." The ad was a clear reference to when Brown assaulted Rihanna after the Grammys in 2009.

She blasted Snapchat for approving the ad, calling it "something that would intentionally bring shame to (domestic violence) victims and made a joke of it!!!"

"I'd love to call it ignorance, but I know you ain't that dumb," Rihanna wrote on an Instagram Stories post.

Snapchat apologized Thursday.

"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," a Snap spokesperson said.

The ad, which came from the app "Would You Rather," has been banned from Snap's advertising platform, according to Snap.

Rihanna hasn't accepted Snap's earlier apology, from Monday.

"Shame on you," she wrote. "Throw the whole app-oligy (sic) away."

First published March 15, 9:38 a.m. PT
Update, 10:44 a.m.: Adds statement from Snap.

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Rihanna slams Snapchat over controversial ad: 'Shame on you'

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Rihanna snapped back at Snapchat on Thursday morning, slamming the social media app for a controversial ad featuring the pop star and Chris Brown. The "Wild Thoughts" singer took to Instagram Stories to respond to the Snapchat ad, which asked viewers if they would rather "Slap Rihanna" or "Punch Chris Brown."

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Heineken pulled a series of commercials for light beer this week that featured the tagline "sometimes, lighter is better," after one of the ads was criticized as racist.

The brewer, which became the latest company to face criticism over marketing that appears to support a preference for fair complexions, responded to the controversy on Monday.

"We missed the mark, are taking the feedback to heart and will use this to influence future campaigns," Heineken U.S. said.

In the ad, a vigilant bartender spots a faraway female patron gazing disappointingly at a wine glass. Quickly, he opens a beer bottle and slides it down the bar.

On its journey over multiple surfaces, the bottle skates past two black women and a black man before stopping at the wine glass. The phrase "sometimes, lighter is better" flashes on screen before the woman, who has lighter skin, inspects the bottle.

The ad, which appeared in a handful of markets, including the United States, Australia and New Zealand, belonged to a series that was introduced in early March on television and online. Heineken decided to drop the line of commercials on Monday.

The musician Chance the Rapper distilled much of the criticism in a series of tweets a day earlier, calling the ad "terribly racist."

"I think some companies are purposely putting out noticably racist ads so they can get more views," he tweeted.

The Heineken ad is the latest to be denounced for appearing to promote fair skin over darker complexions. Last fall, the skin care companies Dove and Nivea faced similar backlashes. Skin-whitening products remain popular around the world.

Such controversies can spread quickly and prove difficult for businesses to quell. In January, less than a week after apologizing for a photo showing a black child modeling a hooded sweatshirt that said "coolest monkey in the jungle," the clothing company H&M was forced to close some South African stores amid protests.

In its statement, Heineken boasted of a long "positive track record" of promoting unity through its marketing. Last year, it was widely praised for a lengthy advertisement, "Worlds Apart," that featured pairs of strangers with opposing views working through their differences as they built furniture and drank beer.

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Heineken Pulls 'Lighter Is Better' Ad After Outcry Over Racism

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Heineken pulled a series of commercials for light beer this week that featured the tagline "sometimes, lighter is better," after one of the ads was criticized as racist. The brewer, which became the latest company to face criticism over marketing that appears to support a preference for fair complexions, responded to the controversy on Monday.

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International retail giant H&M has apologized for an ad featuring a black child model wearing a hoodie emblazoned with the phrase "coolest monkey in the jungle."

Social media blew up over the photo of a young boy wearing the green hooded sweatshirt, which had racist undertones.

The online advertisement for the top was for sale in the U.K.

"We sincerely apologize for offending people with this image of a printed hooded top," H&M said in a statement. "The image has been removed from all online channels and the product will not be for sale in the United States.We believe in diversity and inclusion in all that we do and will be reviewing all our internal policies accordingly to avoid any future issues."

More: Dove ad underscores tense cultural moment for advertisers

More: Kellogg's to replace racially insensitive Corn Pops boxes following Twitter call out

Everyone from celebrities to social-justice experts to comedians chimed in. Tweets ranged form GIFs of head-shaking to adding the letters S, A and E to the retailer's name to spell "Shame."

"It was a horribly insensitive combination of memes," said Bruce Turkel, executive creative director of Miami-based firm Turkel Brands. "People will forget. Trouble will happen if they don't fix their approval process and something like this happens again, because each time it does, this issue will be brought up again."

This isn't the first time the Sweden-based retail chain's has been criticized for racial and ethnic insensitivity. In 2015, it drew fire after its South Africa division featured no black models. When questioned about the lack of diversity, H&M's tweeted response suggested that white models conveyed more positivity. And in 2013, H&M pulled feathered headdresses from its stores after Canadian customers complained it made fun of First Nation tribal customs.

More: Dove sorry for racially insensitive Facebook ad

More: Pepsi yanks Kendall Jenner TV ad, apologizes to her

More: Princess Michael of Kent apologizes for wearing 'racist' brooch in front of Meghan Markle

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Nor is H&M the only company to blunder. In October, Kellogg's pledged to replace a racially insensitive drawing on its Corn Pops box after an uproar on Twitter. The sole brown Corn Pop in the artwork was depicted as a janitor. That month, Dove, a Unilever brand, apologized for a Facebook ad it ran for Dove Body Wash, which showed a black woman taking off a brown T-shirt, revealing a while woman. It prompted calls to boycott the company.

And one week in April saw Pepsi pulling a Kendall Jenner Pepsi commercial that some people viewed as belittling the Black Lives movement, while skincare company Nivea pulled an ad for Invisible For Black & White deodorant, which included the tag line "White is purity."

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Founded in Sweden in 1947, the company now known H&M has more than 4,100 stores worldwide. The initials stand for Hennes & Mauritz.
Follow USA TODAY reporter Zlati Meyer on Twitter: @ZlatiMeyer
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2m7lJHu

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H&M apologizes for ad showing black child model wearing 'monkey' hoodie

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CLOSE International retail giant H&M has apologized for an ad featuring a black child model wearing a hoodie emblazoned with the phrase "coolest monkey in the jungle." Social media blew up over the photo of a young boy wearing the green hooded sweatshirt, which had racist undertones.

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Nearly five months after Pepsi pulled their protest-themed commercial starring Kendall Jenner, the reality star is speaking out about the controversy.

In a trailer for the 14th season of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Jenner is seen huddled on a bed with her sister Kim Kardashian West discussing the backlash. "It feels like my life is over," says Jenner.

Luckily, Kardashian West-who described herself as the "ringleader" of the family during crisis in a recent magazine story-is there to give it to her straight. "You made a mistake," she says.
WATCH: Kendall Jenner Is 'Not Happy' After Pepsi Ad Controversy and Is Laying Low With Family: Source
While we'll have to wait for the full episode to air to hear more from Jenner, Kardashian West previously opened up about what went down during their conversation. "She totally understood at the end of the day and she felt really awful for it," she told Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live. "She just wants to move on from it."

RELATED: Crystal Pepsi Will Return to Shelves One Last Time This Summer

The politically-charged ad was retracted by the brand after accusations of appropriating civil rights movements to sell soda. In the clip, Jenner played the part of a model who ditches a photo shoot to join a group of protesters in the street and calms the chaos by handing a police officer a can of Pepsi.
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A source told PEOPLE that Jenner was "in constant communication with her mom and sisters" after learning of the responses it triggered on social media. "Everyone is being very supportive and ready to give advice," the source said at the time. "Kendall is young and certainly not used to being involved in such controversy."

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Kendall Jenner Addresses Controversial Pepsi Ad for First Time: 'I Feel Like My Life Is Over'

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Nearly five months after Pepsi pulled their protest-themed commercial starring Kendall Jenner, the reality star is speaking out about the controversy. In a trailer for the 14th season of Keeping Up with the Kardashians , Jenner is seen huddled on a bed with her sister Kim Kardashian West discussing the backlash.

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So uh... #Dove - what's happening here? pic.twitter.com/v0PzdtWTBc

- Chasity ‍ (@chasityscooper) October 7, 2017

The Dove brand sheepishly admitted Saturday that it had "missed the mark" with a not-so-vaguely racist advertisement that made it the latest target of consumer rage.

But angry and befuddled Dove lovers spent the weekend wondering what mark Dove was trying to hit in the first place.

The ire-inducing advertisement was released Saturday afternoon. The first frame shows a dark-skinned woman in what appears to be a bathroom, a bottle of Dove body wash in the lower right-hand corner of the frame.

In subsequent frames, the woman reaches down and lifts up her shirt (and apparently the rest of her skin/costume) to reveal a smiling white woman.

Offended social media users erupted, and the company quickly apologized. But Dove's two-sentence Twitter note and a slightly longer message on Facebook left it unclear what exactly the ad was trying to convey.

An image we recently posted on Facebook missed the mark in representing women of color thoughtfully. We deeply regret the offense it caused.

- Dove (@Dove) October 7, 2017

Unilever, Dove's parent company, did not respond to Washington Post requests for comment on the ad.

The vacuum of information was filled on social media by people peppering the company with comments and rhetorical questions, none of them good.

Was Dove saying that inside every black woman is a smiling, redheaded white woman? Was Dove invoking the centuries-old stereotype that black is dirty and white is pure? Or that black skin can or should be cleansed away? And perhaps the biggest question of all: Did Dove really believe that the ad would make more people of color want to buy its products?

"What exactly were yall going for?" a self-described Dove consumer said on the company's Facebook page. "What was the mark . . . I mean anyone with eyes can see how offensive this is. Not one person on your staff objected to this? Wow. Will not be buying your products anymore."

Others wondered whether the problem was a lack of diversity at Dove.

By Monday morning, the hashtag #BoycottDove was spreading on Twitter.

"The short video was intended to convey that Dove body wash is for every woman and be a celebration of diversity, but we got it wrong," the brand said Monday in a statement to Reuters.

A copy of the video captured by a Twitter user before Dove took it down showed three women, not two. In the end, the white woman removes her shirt, revealing a brown woman. But the screen captures were the most widely disseminated images of the ad, which sparked a spreading backlash on Monday morning.

Model Munroe Bergdorf and other critics pointed to historical examples of racist ads about soap so effective that it apparently washes the melanin right out of your skin.

The marketing conundrum is, of course, not limited to the 62-year-old maker of soaps and body washes. Earlier this year, the German skin-care company Nivea was dinged for a deodorant ad that declared "White Is Purity."

As The Washington Post's Amy B Wang wrote, there was a loud outcry from consumers, who called the ad campaign "horrendous" and a "#prnightmare." A white-supremacist group even posted on the company's Facebook page: "We enthusiastically support this new direction your company is taking. I'm glad we can all agree that #WhiteIsPurity."

[A black woman was accused of stealing - so this Victoria's Secret kicked out all black customers]

Still, this latest predicament was a curious one for Dove, a beauty company that has a 13-year-old marketing campaign centered on rejecting standard, racially insular notions of beauty in its commercials. On its website, Dove touts the " Real Beauty Pledge," a vow to feature "real women of different ages, sizes, ethnicities, hair color, type or style."

The brand recently paid producer/screenwriter Shonda Rhimes to make mini films celebrating that theme. Rhimes has created several TV shows that feature minority women as lead characters.

Happy #TGIT! The @Dove #RealBeauty Productions film premiere is livestreaming on Peris... https://t.co/kNRDmcpr2z

- shonda rhimes (@shondarhimes) May 18, 2017

In May, Rhimes produced a short film for Dove about the woman who started the "Fat Girls Dance" group. "It's incredible to watch these ladies go from scared fat girls to, you know, completely amazing warrior fat girls," Cathleen Meredith, the group's founder, says in the video. "I think the entire model of what beauty is needs to be thrown completely out, and we need to start defining what beauty is for ourselves."

Dove's marketing campaign has been criticized by people who believe that feminism and women's empowerment shouldn't be used as marketing tools to persuade people to buy shower foam. As Time wrote in 2013, "Beauty companies like Dove and Pantene capitalize on feminist messages to hawk you products they've convinced you need."

The article went on to say:

One could argue that messages of gender equality are important enough that it doesn't matter if they precede ad copy for a shampoo company. But that line of thinking conveniently misses the point, particularly when it's beauty companies who are using feminism to sell products.

Brands like Dove and Pantene have made millions by preying on women's insecurities and convincing them they need to buy products to meet societal standards of beauty: sure, you're beautiful just the way you are, but use our products and you can be even more beautiful.

The ethics of feminism-centered marketing campaigns aside, Saturday's ad was not the first time Dove's users felt that it had missed the mark. In May, Dove released six limited-edition bottles of body wash in British markets - some squat and curvy, some tall and lean - that were meant to represent variations of the female form. It advertised the bottles using the phrase "beauty breaks the mould."

As Jess Zimmerman wrote in PostEverything in May, most consumers found the bottles, well, dumb.

Dove's new packaging raises a number of questions: Do all the bottles have the same amount of product? Are you supposed to buy the one that looks like you? Are you allowed to buy the ones that don't look like you? Are we gearing up for a "Divergent"-style dystopia in which society is divided according to soap format?

Zimmerman expressed the same confusion that irate Dove users showed this weekend: "But the most important question is: What, exactly, is the point supposed to be?"
This post has been updated. Read more: Even a video game's 'Make America Nazi-free Again' slogan ticked some people off Who betrayed Anne Frank? Artificial intelligence could finally solve the mystery. A teen spread a racist video of a black classmate eating chicken. Both face criminal charges.

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A Dove ad showed a black woman turning herself white. The backlash is growing.

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So uh... #Dove - what's happening here? pic.twitter.com/v0PzdtWTBc - Chasity ‍ (@chasityscooper) October 7, 2017 The Dove brand sheepishly admitted Saturday that it had "missed the mark" with a not-so-vaguely racist advertisement that made it the latest target of consumer rage.

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Hard to believe that this is a a true advertisement

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Introducing V.I.Poo. The new pre-poo toilet spray

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The time has come to change the way we face embarrassing bathroom odors! V.I.Poo is the poo odor neutralizer absolutely guaranteed to do what it is supposed to. Air Wick's collection of scents (Lavender, Lemon, Rose and Fruits) trap nasty smells in the bowl and release a spectacular fragrance that leaves the bathroom smelling better than before you used it.