Coca-Cola raised the ire of American conservatives after reportedly banning words like ‘Jesus’ and ‘Trump’ on personalized cans of coke sold online.
Videos posted on social media showed that words like ‘Jesus loves you’ and ‘Trump 2024’ were not allowed to be printed on the cans while ‘Satan’, ‘Allah’ and ‘Kamala Harris’ were. That led to some calling for a boycott of Coke products, since the banned words on the personalizing tool appeared to be anti-conservative.
But after complaints, Coca-Cola reportedly fixed the glitch, banning all words that are “trademarked, political in nature, names of countries, celebrities, religious figures, as well as anything that could be considered offensive for other reasons,” according to the UK’s Daily Mail.
Some people who commented on the inability to use ‘Jesus’ on a can of coke pointed out that it is a common name in the United States.
“If a submission is not approved, such as for a specific name, a consumer at a store can show ID with their legal name for a store manager to approve for printing,” Coke said in a statement, according to the Daily Mail. “If the submission is online, a consumer can also modify their request.
“We recognize technology is imperfect, which is why we have additional layers of approval.”
Antwoine Hill originally posted the glitch on Facebook and it quickly went viral on X.
“I am pointing out the obvious, the only name that gets this much backlash and hate is the name of Jesus,” Hill told the Daily Dot. “So for me this just doesn’t seem nearly as big as these issues, but nonetheless I won’t support any company that doesn’t support Jesus.”