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Coca-Cola slammed after banning ‘Palestine’, ‘BLM’ on bottles but not ‘Israel’ and 'Nazis'

'Because they wanna use the lgbtqia+ people/minorities in general and their traumas for profit not validate them of course,' a user noted

Coca-Cola Co’s website on Monday, June 21, reportedly censored ‘Palestine’ and ‘Black Lives Matter,’ but allowed ‘Nazis’, 'Israel' and ‘Blue Lives Matter’ on its customizable Coke bottles. The issue was first noticed by a Twitter user, Rami Ismail (@tha_rami), who shared a link to the “Share a Coke” personalized Coke bottle webpage.

The user also stated the problems that it came with. Ismail tweeted, “Get an error because Coca-Cola thinks Palestine is offensive. Enter ‘Israel’. Get no error because Coca-Cola thinks Israel is not offensive. What's up @CocaCola?” In a follow-up tweet, he added, “Oh, and sorry @osamadorias, can't share a Coca Cola with you. Osama is prohibited. And Mohammed also can't have a Coca Cola while we're at it. Well done, @CocaCola . Just banned the most common name on Earth because y'all don't consider Arabs or Muslims exist.”

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Another Twitter user Laura Kate Dale (@LaurakBuzz) pointed out that the website “blocks ‘Black Lives Matter,' but allows ‘blue lives matter’ and ‘Nazis’. I've been testing it for a bit.” Many people then went into the testing mode and tried explicit or LBGTQ phrases onto a bottle. A person noted while, “To say that Coke f**ked this one up is the understatement of the century. I kept going for a few minutes, and there's a lot more offensive ones that went through fine. Real glad they covered their bases with Palestine and common Muslim names tho,” while sharing screenshots of bottles with words, like ‘forced penetration’, ‘slavery’, and ‘dead babies’. Another person stated, “Because they wanna use the lgbtqia+ people/minorities in general and their traumas for profit not validate them of course.” One user said, "Drink water instead of Coca Cola :D"

The Daily Dot also cross-checked the claims made by social media users and found that they were right. The digital media company said that the Coca-Cola Co’s website indeed allowed ‘Blue Lives Matter’, but ‘Black Lives Matter’ did not make it through it. It also claimed that though ‘slavery’ was not allowed, the word ‘forced labor’ did not face any issue. However, it added that the words ‘Israel,’ ‘ACAB,’ and ‘Nazis’ did not pass through on Tuesday, June 22, ‘Nazis rule’ still got through.

A representative for The Coca-Cola Co told the Daily Dot, “We’re continuously refining and improving our Share A Coke personalization tool to ensure it is used only for its intended purpose—for Coca-Cola fans to celebrate with one another and make connections. We add terms and phrases if we feel they are consistent with that intent.”

Meanwhile, a user said that after adding spaces between the words, they were able to write ‘Palestine’ and ‘lesbian’ on the bottles. They tweeted, “It seems including a banned word in a sentence (even just adding a space and a period) will bypass the filter. Examples (BLM uses the two lines feature, and I STILL needed the space and period to get it through). So we have to go through extra steps for the same shit.” But it’s not clear if the changes were made after the uproar.