Coca-Cola has been accused of blocking certain names and phrases, such as "Jesus" and "Trump 2024," from its personalized can service while allowing others, such as "Satan" and "Harris Walz 2024," to be used. These allegations have sparked calls to boycott the iconic beverage brand.
On Sept. 24, 2024, one X user criticized Coca-Cola for the alleged decision, saying it discriminated against Christians. That post had amassed more than 7.9 million views as of this writing.
Many social media users condemned the apparent name restrictions, with one person writing: "You block Jesus but allow every other deity including Satan! Welcome to Bud Lights legacy. You were the number one cola. You're dead to Christians!"
Another said: "This is outrageous! Coca-Cola censoring political and religious speech to fit their own agenda is the very definition of election interference. It's time we hit back where it hurts—their wallets."
One popular X account wrote: "@CocaCola's custom can website allows you to use 'Harris Walz 2024' but restricts you from using 'Trump 2024' because it's 'political in nature' or 'offensive.' Care to explain @CocaCola?"
(@libsoftiktok/X)
Snopes contacted Coca-Cola for an explanation regarding the names that are and are not permitted. We will update this article if the company responds. However, its public guidelines were clear about restrictions on controversial names.
According to Coca-Cola's personalization tool, the platform follows strict guidelines, preventing the names of religious figures, political slogans, and potentially offensive content. For example, adding the name "Pope" triggered the following message:
(Coca-Cola)
What Happens When You Enter 'Jesus' or 'Trump 2024'?
Several of the clips shared to X featured interactions with Coca-Cola's digital vending machines in public retail settings. However, Snopes conducted independent tests using the official online Coca-Cola Store for creating a "Personalized 12 fl oz. Can of Coca-Cola."
Here's what we found when we attempted to include the names mentioned in the above posts:
- Jesus: Coca-Cola returned the same message we posted above, which stated: "Looks like the name you requested is not approved. Names and phrases may not be approved if they are trademarked, political in nature, names of countries, celebrities, religious figures, as well as anything that could be considered offensive for other reasons. Oftentimes, a name might be accepted if you add a last name to the submission."
- Satan: Contrary to the social media claims, the same message appeared as above.
- Allah: Also contradicting several social media claims, this name was also blocked, likely for religious reasons.
- Adding last names to religious names: Due to the automatic message that popped up suggesting that "a name might be accepted if you add a last name to the submission," we added common last names to those of a religious nature, including "Jesus Johnson," "Satan Jones," "Allah Wong," and "Buddha Cohen." Each time, we received the same automatic message, similar to the one above, saying the "phrase you've submitted is not recognized and requires further review."
- Biblical names: Snopes tested multiple names from the Bible. Of those, we found the following biblical names were not permitted: "Moses," "Judah," "Judas," and "Bathsheba." However, the following, among many other older names, were allowed, pending review: "Barack," "Abraham," "Abijah," "Levi," "Ahab," and "Job."
- Trump 2024 and Harris Walz 2024: We also tested the political names mentioned in the X posts. Both "Trump 2024" and "Harris Walz 2024" were restricted, citing the company's policy against content that is political in nature.
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Political names: Names like "The Donald" or "Donald Trump" were not permitted, but "Donald" was. Meanwhile, "Kamala" and "Harris" were not allowed. The name "Tim" was allowed, while "Walz" was not. Lastly, while both "JD" and "J.D." were acceptable, the name "Vance" was rejected.
- Celebrity names: While the automatic message warned that names and phrases may not be approved if they were trademarked or the names of celebrities, we tested several names of famous people that could be common among the populace, and several that may be less common. We found that while celebrity names at the more common end of the spectrum, like "Jason Alexander," "Daniel Craig" and "Jennifer Lopez," were all accepted, pending review, other names that may be less common, like "Jason Momoa," "Daniel Radcliffe" and "Jennifer Aniston," were not accepted.
In sum, Coca-Cola's personalized can service uses an automated system to filter out names and phrases deemed political, religious or potentially offensive. Both "Jesus" and "Trump 2024" fell into categories that triggered restrictions, according to the corporation's public guidelines.
Claims that names like "Satan" or "Harris Walz 2024" are permitted, while others like "Trump 2024" and "Jesus" are not, were inconsistent with our findings, which showed that political and religious names were uniformly restricted regardless of affiliation or nature.
However, we cannot account for individual experiences that users may have had with Coca-Cola's service, particularly those involving temporary glitches, updates or retroactive changes following social media backlash. For these reasons, we have chosen not to provide a definitive rating on this occasion and will continue to monitor the situation for any developments
Snopes has previously addressed claims regarding Coca-Cola, including the truth that yellow caps on Coke bottles have a special meaning, and the claim that Coca-Cola used to contain cocaine.