Coca-Cola’s Label Customizer Faces Outcry For Banning BLM, Allowing Nazi Praise
Image via Coca-Cola
As part of June’s Pride Month celebrations, Coca-Cola joined the thousands of corporations who are showing their support for the LGBTQ+ community.
This year, the drink brand came up with the idea of a personalized rainbow label, allowing customers to customize their names on the special-edition Coca-Cola bottle.
However, the company is now facing criticism as customers found out it had banned certain words from being used, while allowing others that could seem considerably more offensive. As with any custom generator, customers tested its limits, before taking to social media to share the results.
As reported by Input, a user on Twitter posted screenshots showing terms such as “Black Lives Matter” and “BLM” being banned, as well as “Palestine.”
Even more ironically, considering this initiative was meant to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community, of which transgender individuals are a part of, the word “transgender” was on the ban list too.
Upon entering these words and phrases into the generator, users received a reply, reading, “Oops! Looks like the name you requested is not an approved one. Names may not be approved if they’re potentially offensive to other people, trademarked, or celebrity names. We’ve worked hard to get this list right, but sometimes we mess up. If you think this is an error, please contact our Customer Care team. Otherwise, please try again, keep it fun, and in the spirit of sharing!”
Despite Coca-Cola claiming it has “worked hard to get this list right,” it is unclear as to why certain terms were banned when others weren’t. For example, while “Palestine” was disallowed, “Israel” was given the green light, and “White Lives Matter” as well as “Nazis” were okay-ed, but “Black Lives Matter” was banned.
Weirdly enough, Coca-Cola’s list appeared to be censoring the very people it was supposed to celebrate. Another Twitter user found that apart from “transgender,” other LGBTQ+ terms such as “gay pride,” “LGBT,” “lesbian,” and “bisexual” were banned.
In response to an inquiry by CNN, a Coca-Cola spokesperson said that “words or phrases that have appeared in the preview mode of the tool may not necessarily be approved, but rather are words we have not previously assessed. Actual bottles are not made with words that are inconsistent with the program’s intent. We have clarified in the tool’s preview mode that proposed language may require further review.”
This could mean that while certain offending phrases were allowed to be previewed on the generator, Coca-Cola may have implemented a second layer of checks to prevent those customized labels from actually being printed, though with the uproar the generator has already caused online, it is unclear how the company might fully mediate the situation.
1. Go to https://t.co/JiabeZBSoA
— Rami Ismail (رامي) (@tha_rami) June 21, 2021
2. Enter "Palestine"
3. Get an error because Coca Cola thinks Palestine is offensive.
4. Enter "Israel"
5. Get no error because Coca Cola thinks Israel is not offensive.
What's up @CocaCola?
Very cool system, Coca Cola https://t.co/BqCDyfmM98 pic.twitter.com/VBzk6fn3rM
— Amelia® (@RealiaAmelia) June 22, 2021
I love corporate pride!!!
— Tony Hawk's Moving Castle (@rosebotics) June 21, 2021
Corporations are my friends!!! pic.twitter.com/WH4I2X6nnD
[via Input and CNN, cover image via Coca-Cola]
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