The latest online scandal started, as many of those things do, with a woman's rear end. And ChapStick wishes it would all go away.

Yes, ChapStick. The lip-balm maker, owned by Pfizer (PFE), decided to run an advertisement prominently showing the behind of a woman searching for her ChapStick behind a sofa. "Where do lost ChapSticks go?" asked the ad.

It was a bizarre photo (you can see it here) but not really any big deal. We've seen far worse in other advertisements.

Along came the inevitable blog post complaining that the image was degrading to women. The blogger also pointed out that ChapStick has been deleting any critical comments on its Facebook page (even after encouraging people to "be heard at Facebook.com/chapsti​ck").

For many, the idea that ChapStick was censoring was worse than the image itself. So more visited the page to comment, and more saw their comments deleted. I imagine someone over in ChapStick PR has a bad case of carpel tunnel today.

Finally, ChapStick responded by removing the ad and issuing an apology. "We know we don't always get it right," the ChapStick team said on its Facebook page. ChapStick also said it complied with Facebook guidelines and removed posts with foul language and repetitive messaging.

AdWeek seized upon the phony defense. "So, to those ChapStick fans whose comments were deleted -- it was all your fault, you obnoxious, foul-mouthed, menacing spambots!" wrote Tim Nudd. "Seriously, maybe just shut down the whole page at this point."

MediaPost's Catharine Taylor says the whole issue is really stupid. "So, what do we take away from all this?," she asks. "That sometimes people get offended by pictures of people's backsides, and that social media strategies should never be run by the legal department."