Pop star Rihanna has urged fans to delete Snapchat after the social media app ran an ad making fun of her 2009 beating at the hands of then boyfriend Chris Brown.

Shares of Snap, the company that makes the app, were down 4.7 per cent in trading on Thursday.

“SNAPCHAT I know you know you ain’t my fav app out there! But I’m just trying to figure out what the point was with this mess!” the singer wrote on Instagram on Thursday.

Rihanna’s post on her Instagram story on Friday. Photo: Instagram

“You spent money to animate something that would intentionally bring shame to DV victims and made a joke of it!!!,” she added, referring to domestic violence.

“Shame on you. Throw the whole app-oligy away.”

The singer was speaking out after Snapchat earlier this week apologised and took down an advert on its platform for a mobile video game called “Would You Rather!”

The ad showed pictures of Rihanna and Brown with the captions “Slap Rihanna” and “Punch Chris Brown.” Both the ad and the game were unaffiliated with Snapchat.

R&B singer Brown pleaded guilty to assaulting Rihanna in 2009 in an incident that made headlines around the world.

Snapchat said the ad was disgusting and should not have appeared on its service.

The offensive ad was pulled from Snapchat.

“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 company said in a statement.

Rihanna’s comments were the latest bad press for Snapchat.

Its shares lost about $US1.5 billion ($1.93 billion) in market value in February after social media celebrity Kylie Jenner, who has as many as 105 million Instagram followers, tweeted that she did not like the Snapchat site’s redesign.

Dozens of fans on Thursday tweeted that they were following Rihanna’s call to delete the Snapchat app.