AT&T roiled Twitter on Wednesday afternoon by combining an advertisement for the BlackBerry Z10 with imagery of the 9/11 Tribute in Light. The tweeted picture, combined with the text “Never Forget,” was quickly hate-retweeted by hundreds of the AT&T account’s followers.

The Tribute in Light memorial consists of a set of two light columns near the World Trade Center site, visible for miles around in the New York metro area. The lights are a popular subject in photography in New York while the memorial is on in the days leading up to 9/11’s anniversary; in the surrounding area, there’s no direction you can look without seeing a passerby holding their phone up to take a photo of the tribute beaming up into the clouds.

Still, the use of the lights for product placement rubbed many readers the wrong way. “Tacky as fuck,” said @MonroetheWanted. “This is gross,” said Kent German. “I would rethink and possibly apologize. Sooner rather than later,” said Jefferson Burruss. But the tweet wasn't universally negatively received: "ATT sells phones—it seems natural to reflect on the memory through a generic phone screen," said Michael Andy. "Just to stress: I'm not arguing whether or not it was in good taste, just whether or not it was marketing," he added.

AT&T apologized an hour later: "We apologize to anyone who felt our post was in poor taste. The image was solely meant to pay respect to those affected by the 9/11 tragedy," the company account tweeted. The original tweet has been removed.

The Blackberry brand is faintly visible in the photo. Blackberry did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but we will update this article if we hear back.

Update: AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson has issued a formal apology on the company's website: