Indian Court Grants PepsiCo's Takedown Request Targeting Thousands Of 'Disparaging' Social Media Posts

from the I-love-the-smell-of-burning-Kurkure-in-the-morning dept

A global conglomerate concerned about the reputation of its plastic "safe vegetarian" snack has talked an Indian court into ordering the blocking of thousands of posts it finds disparaging. MediaNama has more details (and links to court docs!) on PepsiCo's social media purge.

PepsiCo has obtained an interim order from the Delhi High Court to delete hundreds of posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, documents obtained by MediaNama reveal. PepsiCo confirmed the development in a statement to MediaNama. These posts, PepsiCo said in its petition, furthered the myth that PepsiCo’s Kurkure corn puffs product contains plastic. The civil defamation suit compiles years of posts on the social media platforms, demanding that they be taken down. There are 3412 Facebook links, 20244 Facebook posts, 242 YouTube videos, 6 Instagram links, and 562 tweets that have been ordered removed.

This order [PDF] covers more than just content heavily insinuating PepsiCo's Kurkure snack is made of plastic. It also covers posts joking about the subject or satirizing the mini-hysteria surrounding the suddenly-infamous snack. This followed another courtroom win in India for the snack maker.

Earlier this year, it obtained an order blocking social media posts claiming Lay's potato chips were made of plastic. (It was also claimed the potato chips would kill those who consumed them, which they will, but eventually, not immediately.) PepsiCo, however, did not issue a statement at that time insisting Lay's chips were a "100% safe, vegetarian snack made from trusted, high quality everyday kitchen ingredients."

The social media posts drawing the most heat from Pepsi have been those in which the snack is lit on fire as evidence of its inherent dangerousness (and supposed plastic content). As Pepsi noted in its complaint, the snack product is indeed flammable, just as many snacks are.

“Any food item containing carbohydrate, oil and protein, will burn when exposed to fire,” the petition said, listing out a series of safety certifications its products and factories have received.

Companies are obviously interested in protecting their brands, but the interim blocking orders obtained by Pepsi target more than idiots claiming its snacks are as harmful as vaccinations. It also took down posts mocking the idiots because nuance and context are the first things to go when seeking takedowns at scale. This tweet mocks the spread of "news" on Whatsapp by listing a couple of bogus news items apparently making the rounds.

If you can't read/see the screenshot, the Twitter conversation goes as follows:

Prasanto K Roy: For many, news breaks on WhatsApp. "Did you HEAR the news?!! Kurkure has plastic! Coke melts teeth" @ndcnn @gautamghosh @malabhargava

KurkureSnacks: @prasanto @ndcnn @GautamGhosh @malabhargava Kurkure is 100%safe made with rice,corn & besan.It doesn't contain plastic.Don't believe rumours

Prasanto K Roy: @KurkureSnacks yes I know; that was my point. The "news" on WhatsApp--isn't.

The tweet has been withheld in India, despite Pepsi's own response to one of the claims made and despite the Twitter user making it clear he was mocking the spread of bogus "facts." (Pepsi did not offer to correct the record on Coke's shocking ability to generate life "melt teeth.")

The order Pepsi obtained not only demands the deletion/withholding of nearly 20,000 social media posts, but it also instructs the platforms to withhold/delete any post offending Pepsi until this case is fully adjudicated. This veers pretty close to prior restraint, something India's Supreme Court has actually ruled against. The only thing saving it from becoming a free speech violation is the notification requirement, which means the "offending" content must first be published before Pepsi can demand to have it removed.

But it still stinks a bit like censorship. The Indian government is aiding PepsiCo's reputation management scheme by granting this blanket request which ignores the context of certain users' posts. In doing so, Pepsi is no better than any company that issues DMCA takedown requests based on keywords and deciding everything returned in a search must be infringing. In addition, Pepsi's own filing shows the company has engaged in plenty of counterspeech, which is a remedy anyone can use without having to bring the government into it. Finally, the targets of Pepsi's actions should be the people disparaging its products, not the social media companies hosting the content. But it's always easier to target social media platforms than the actual offenders, especially in countries that don't offer immunity to service providers for user-generated content.

Filed Under: censorship, disparagement, free speech, india, jokes, kurkure
Companies: pepsi, pepsico

DailyDirt: How Sweet It Is?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

We've been following diet fads for a while now -- and seeing how sugar (in various forms) has been blamed for health problems. Artificial sweeteners are supposed to help us avoid consuming too much sugar (and be more healthy in the balance), but it's probably not surprising that studies are starting to show that these alternatives to sugar also have their own side effects.

• Aspartame is being removed from Pepsi products, but it's still in thousands of other items that people eat and drink. Aspartame is one of the most studied food additives, and there isn't much evidence that it causes health problems such as cancer -- although phenylketonurics should stay away from it (as well as phenylalanine or anything that turns into phenylalanine). [url]
• Sucrose (aka table sugar) is a reference on the sweetness scale with a value of 1.0, and other natural sugars such as fructose can be a bit sweeter (1.1-1.8). Other naturally-occurring compounds like chloroform and stevia are orders of magnitude sweeter than sucrose, but you probably don't want to ingest chloroform. Lugduname is one of the sweetest compounds known, estimated to be over 200,000 times sweeter than sucrose, but it's not approved as a food additive (yet). People throughout history have been poisoned by sweet toxins (eg. lead acetate), but hopefully we'll avoid a similar fate. [url]
• Artificial sweeteners might reduce the calories a person consumes (depending on how much a person actually consumes), but these additives may also alter the microbiome in the digestive system, making some people less able to control blood sugar levels. It's still uncertain what the net effect of artificial sweeteners might be on any particular individual, but it's probably not as easy as you might think it is to eliminate all added sugar and artificial sweeteners from your diet. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: artificial sweeteners, aspartame, diabetes, diet, food, food additive, lugduname, microbiome, phenylketonurics, stevia, sucrose, sugar, taste
Companies: pepsi

DailyDirt: Uncommon Un-Colas

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

A vast number of soft drinks are available, and some of the most popular ones seem to have started as medicinal tonics (even the ones that aren't called "energy drinks" nowadays). Coca-cola was once a headache medicine that contained an unhealthy amount of cocaine -- that wasn't completely removed until 1929. Here are just a few other strange sodas with some unusual natural ingredients.

• Pepsi is launching a new soda sweetened with stevia (and sugar), but it's only going to be available online at Amazon. Pepsi True is not shipping yet, but there are already a few reviews from people who haven't tasted it. [url]
• Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray soda has been around since 1868, and it may be the only celery-flavored soda that is mass-produced commercially. Celery was once considered a superfood with medicinal powers, so they made a tonic from it, and that story is nearly the same for several other popular soft drinks with supposedly healthy ingredients. [url]
• The Un-Cola 7 Up was also known as 'Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda' when it debuted in 1929. The original formula also contained lithium which, at high doses, is prescribed to treat bi-polar disorder. Lithium citrate was removed from 7 Up by the 1950s, but the drink still contains only "100% natural" flavors. (Note: drinking water may contain trace amounts of lithium, too.) [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: 7up, cel-ray, cocaine, drinks, food, lithium, natural ingredients, pop, soda, stevia, sugar, tonic
Companies: 7up, coca-cola, pepsi

DailyDirt: Healthier Sodas Still Aren't That Healthy

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

It's not easy to introduce a new soda (or pop or whatever you like to call carbonated soft drinks). Just try to find a bottle of New Coke, Crystal Pepsi, OK Soda or 7Up Gold -- and those are just the discontinued sodas that had some significant marketing campaigns behind them. The successful introduction of diet sodas has evolved into a trend toward "healthier" sodas with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, real sugar, no BVO, herbal supplements and all sorts of other ingredients that might provide some kind of health benefit. However, some of these healthy sodas are dying off because consumers don't seem to want sodas that sound too good for you. Here are just a few examples of healthier sodas you might want to try.

• Pepsi Special is a diet soda that contains dextrin -- an indigestible fiber that can make a person feel full and reduce the body's ability to absorb fat from foods. This beverage has recently been approved for sale in Japan, but it's not the only soft drink with dextrin on the Japanese market. (NB: drinking a lot of indigestible fiber might keep you in the bathroom for a bit longer than usual...) [url]
• A few years ago, Coke and Pepsi both introduced "healthy" sodas (Diet Coke Plus and Tava, respectively). These carbonated beverages were fortified with vitamins and minerals, but they didn't quite catch on. [url]
• Coke and Pepsi weren't the first to try adding vitamins and minerals to soda -- in 2004, 7Up Plus hit the shelves a few years before Diet Coke Plus and Tava. 7Up with antioxidants also ran into some problems, and a lawsuit from the Center for Science in the Public Interest made the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group agree to stop adding vitamin E to drinks and claiming to have antioxidant health benefits. [url]

Filed Under: 7up, 7up plus, antioxidants, dextrin, diet coke plus, diet soda, drink, fiber, food, health, minerals, new coke, pepsi special, pop, soda, tava, vitamins
Companies: coca cola, dr pepper snapple group, pepsi

DailyDirt: DIY Soda (Pop Or Whatever You Call Carbonated Beverages)

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Making your own carbonated soft drinks has a few benefits -- from knowing where all the ingredients came from (eg. no brominated vegetable oil) to getting the satisfaction of creating your own custom flavoring. It's not quite as simple as punching a button on a vending machine, but it's not exactly rocket science, either. Here are just a few links on being your own soda jerk.

• Sodastream has been around since 1903, but it went public on the Nasdaq in 2010 and started expanding its DIY soda making system to take on the big soft drink makers. But marketing itself as an alternative isn't always easy, and it had to change its 2013 SuperBowl commercial to remove Coke and Pepsi logos. [url]
• The secret recipe for a can of Coca-Cola isn't just getting the mixture of caramel coloring and phosphoric acid right; there are also a zillion other details from packaging and distribution that have been optimized. The top of the aluminum can is actually a different aluminum-magnesium alloy from the rest of the can, engineered so it can have a pop-top and still withstand the pressurized contents. [url]
• When making your own soda, be sure to use 100% essential food oils that are rated food grade. Recipes to make Open Cola and the "original" Coke are available, but there's a bit of set up involved. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: beverage, flavoring, food, open cola, pop, recipes, soda, soft drinks
Companies: coca-cola, pepsi, sodastream

DailyDirt: Breakfast of Champions...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Breakfast is supposedly the more important meal of the day. But does it matter what you eat for breakfast? There are plenty of incredibly unhealthy-sounding breakfast menus, but people are always coming up with even more outrageous breakfast items. Here are just a few examples of how kids can start their day.

• PepsiCo has a breakfast soda called Kickstart -- a Mountain Dew-flavored beverage with caffeine and some fruit juice and added vitamins. Are you a backer for 92 milligrams of caffeine in a 16oz can? [url]
• All kinds of deep fried foods can be found at county fairs, and deep fried breakfast cereals are no exception. Last year, the San Diego County Fair offered several kinds of breakfast cereals in a hot, crispy slightly chewy and delicious form (if you like fried stuff, and who doesn't). [url]
• If there's an important state-wide standardized test, students should eat a good breakfast before they take it -- and they can get a free meal from McDonald's for taking the FCAT (in Florida) in 3rd to 11th grade. And if anyone can correlate higher test scores with the students who ate at McDonald's.... [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: breakfast, caffeine, cereal, fcat, food, fried, kickstart, mountain dew, soda
Companies: mcdonald's, pepsi

DailyDirt: Engineering The Perfect Taste

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

We know it's not good for us, but why are we so addicted to processed foods? Part of it is related to convenience, but perhaps the real reason is because processed foods taste good -- that is, if you like a lot of sugar, salt, and fat. As much as we would like to not think about it, a lot of science (and money for research, development, and marketing) goes into designing the perfect-tasting junk food that will have people coming back for more. Here are a few examples of how science is being used to trick our taste buds.

• The science behind the creation and marketing of junk food can be useful for food companies, but it can also be contributing to the rising rates of obesity in the U.S. Apparently, the key to designing the perfect junk food is to find the "bliss point" by optimizing levels of ingredients like sugar, salt, and fat. Also, in addition to taste, the crunch and mouth feel of junk food is just as important. For example, the perfect potato chip is one that breaks with about four pounds of pressure per square inch. [url]
• PepsiCo has reportedly developed a low-sodium potato chip that tastes just as salty as the original. The secret ingredient is "Crystal Salt" which is powdery like confectioner's sugar, allowing it to dissolve more efficiently on the tongue, so people taste more salt even though there's actually less of it on the chip. [url]
• The airline food industry should take some tips from the junk food industry and find a way to make airline food taste better. It turns out that people's taste buds don't work so well in-flight due to a combination of low cabin humidity and changes in air pressure. Astronauts in zero gravity seem to suffer from similar diminished tasting ability as well. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: airline food, bliss point, fat, food, salt, sugar, taste
Companies: pepsi

CBS Bans Commercial That Disparages Coke & Pepsi, But Lets Them Disparage Each Other

from the no-disruption-allowed dept

Oh, the benefits of incumbency.

Sodastream is a cool new company that allows consumers to make their own carbonated beverages at home.  Given its popularity, largely due to its ease of use, SodaStream’s stock has been on a run the last few months.  It also possesses the potential to disrupt to established beverage companies like Pepsi and Coke.

Not surprisingly, SodaStream would like to advertise this fact.  In fact, it is so keen on advertising the relative benefits of its product over the more traditional route of buying pre-made soda from the store that the company ponied up for a Super Bowl commercial.  Unfortunately for SodaStream, the ad was rejected by CBS, not because it was too risque, but because it “disparages” other major advertisers (which is apparently more objectionable than borderline softcore porn a la GoDaddy and Mercedes).  As Ad Age reported:

The content of its planned commercial seemed to have concerned CBS because it was a direct hit at two other Super Bowl sponsors and heavy network TV advertisers: Coke and Pepsi.

We’ve discussed elsewhere CBS’s newfound affinity for the ban hammer, but this isn’t even the first time this has happened to SodaStream.  British regulatory authorities yanked Sodastream’s first major advertising campaign for “being too disparaging towards soda manufacturers like Coke and Pepsi.”

How disparaging was SodaStream that its ads were pulled from television?  Well, it simply pointed out that SodaStream was more environmentally friendly than drinking off-the-shelf sodas because, with SodaStream, “you could save more than 2,000 bottles a year.”  Wow, that is incendiary.  Not safe for public consumption!

It gets better.  Clearcast, the NGO — funded by the British broadcasters — that pre-approves most advertisements for British television, reportedly offered this rationale for pulling the ad:

The majority decided that the ad could be seen to tell people not to go to supermarkets and buy soft drinks, [and] instead help to save the environment by buying a SodaStream. [SodaStream] was also told that it constituted denigration of the bottled-drinks market.

Hypocritically, U.S. broadcasters have allowed Pepsi to air Super Bowl ads that bashed Coke directly, as Ad Age also pointed out:

Interestingly enough, Pepsi has scored big points with viewers over the years by showing Super Bowl ads with Coke deliverymen abandoning their employer wholesale for a sip of a Pepsi drink.

Moral of this story:  Pepsi and Coke can attack each other over trivial differences in their products, but don’t attack the business model of big incumbent advertisers.

Fortunately, there is an upside for SodaStream.  All the controversy that these ads have stirred has generated a buzz around them.  The SodaStream “banned Super Bowl ad” has already generated more than two million hits on YouTube in two days and generated a media buzz around the company itself.  And that’s without having to splash $3.8 million worth of cash for a Super Bowl commercial.  Another example of the Streisand Effect in action.

[SodaStream is running a commercial during the Super Bowl, but it was forced to replace Coke and Pepsi with fictional soda companies.  However, that ad only has a little more than 17,000 YouTube views in the last two days.]

Cross posted from Project-Disco.

Filed Under: ads, commercials, competition, disruption, soda, super bowl, superbowl
Companies: cbs, coke, pepsi, sodastream

DailyDirt: Promotional Space Food

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Red Bull made a huge advertising event out of Felix Baumgartner's record-breaking free-fall from the edge of space. But it's not the only food/drink maker to sponsor a space-related promotion. Maybe it's a bit disconcerting that food companies have enough dough in their advertising budgets to fund crazy stunts, or maybe it's awesome that advertising/marketing budgets are being used to fund incredibly cool projects.... Either way, here are a few other examples of sponsored space foods.

• Pizza Hut delivered the first pizza to the International Space Station in 2001, which Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachov ate as a $1 million promotional stunt. Salami instead of pepperoni was used as a topping, and extra salt and spices were added to adjust for the deadened taste buds of a long-term space inhabitant. [url]
• Commemorative M&Ms celebrated SpaceShipOne's successful sub-orbital flight and its Ansari X Prize win. M&Ms were also used on a test flight to demonstrate weightlessness to spectators watching a remote video stream. [url]
• M&Ms have been taken aboard numerous NASA missions for about 30 years. However, NASA has generally been coy about calling the space-worthy candies M&Ms. [url]
• Specially-designed cans of Coke and Pepsi have been on a space shuttle mission during the Cola Wars. The beverages weren't that refreshing for astronauts due to a lack of refrigeration and messiness. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: ads, food, m&ms, space, sponsorship
Companies: coca-cola, mars, pepsi, red bull

DailyDirt: Make The Logos Bigger, Better

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Logos can convey all kinds of messages -- and instill a sense of confidence or demonstrate a lack of attention to detail. Some logos are fun. Others are serious. Some company logos don't change very much over a long period of time, but others seem to change with every passing design fad. Some logo re-designs are more successful than others. Here are just a few interesting logo collections of some branding campaigns that you might recognize.

• SB Nation's network of 300 blogs redesigned all their logos for a re-launch -- with just a single designer, Fraser Davidson, in 7 weeks. Designing 300 logos is hard enough, but add in the complication that none of these logos should in any way infringe upon their related sports teams' official trademarks.... [url]
• Imagine some popular corporate logos redesigned for a hipster blog or startup. You don't have to imagine it, there's a Tumblr blog for it. [url]
• The evolution of corporate logos is kinda fascinating. Apple's first logo in 1976 is really different from its current minimalistic logo. [url]
• Some logos have hidden messages in them. The Big Ten collegiate conference logo has a little nod to the fact that there are actually eleven teams in its organization. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: branding, design, logos, marketing, messaging
Companies: apple, pepsi